Gardens Interactive, established by industry veterans responsible for creating Journey and Sky: Children of the Light, has secured more than $35 million in a Series B funding round

Gardens Interactive's Project Gardens

Image credit: Gardens Interactive

In a significant financial boost, Gardens Interactive has secured over $35 million during a Series B funding round spearheaded by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This influx has elevated their total raised funds to in excess of $70 million.

The funding round featured participation from investors such as Zenith Capital, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Accel, Innovation Endeavours, and Bayshore.

Among the individual backers are notable figures like Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and former CEO of Slack; Andy Zhong, CEO of FunPlus; and Thomas Dimson, known for his role in creating OpenAI's Sora.

Lightspeed's gaming lead, Moritz Baier-Lentz, has taken on a role as an independent advisor with Gardens Interactive. V Pappas, former COO of TikTok, will represent Lightspeed on the developer's board of directors.

Krafton's board representation by Mike Hong, director of investments and business analysis, marks a shift from the previous representative, Maria Park. Park, who leads corporate development at Krafton, will now serve as an independent advisor to Gardens Interactive.

Co-founded by veterans of acclaimed games such as Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Sky: Children of the Light, Gardens Interactive is advancing development on its inaugural game, currently titled Project Gardens.

This upcoming title is envisioned as a multiplayer experience defined as a "shared fantasy adventure" enriched with "social roleplay elements." For more details, visit their official announcement.

Stephen Bell, CEO of Gardens Interactive, stated, "Social roleplay means empowering players to be the engines of one another's adventures, to give them the tools to express themselves, connect and communicate – to invite them to forge lasting relationships, landmark memories, and to transform the world together. We're proud to also unite this incredible group of investors."

The CEO further expressed, "This funding gives us the room to ship a game of this scale properly, and to keep it alive and evolving for years to come. Our ambition is to grow Gardens into the global leader of prestige social entertainment, and we are deeply grateful for our partners – those who have been with us from the beginning, and those who are new to our adventure party – for believing in our vision and for recognizing social roleplay and player-driven worldbuilding as a massive and majorly underserved category."