Ramen VR, the creators behind crowd-funded VR MMORPG Zenith: The Last City, announced it’s closed a Series B round of $35 million, something the studio says will allow it to significantly expand in size as it aims to develop Zenith into a metaverse platform that goes far beyond its current scope.
The studio’s latest financing round was led by Anthos Capital and Dune Ventures. Additional investments come from Makers Fund and personal investments from Andreessen Horowitz partners Andrew Chen and James Gwertzman.
The studio’s Series B brings its outside investment to over $45 million; Ramen VR’s penultimate round of $10 million was led by Makers Fund in September 2023.
Ramen VR says the funding will be used to “double the size of the studio as it transforms Zenith into a gaming super-app containing multiple worlds and gameplay experiences across VR, desktop, and mobile.”
“The reception for Zenith has been amazing. We’re already profitable but now we want to take the game to the next level, building massive interconnected gaming worlds for all to explore,” said Andy Tsen, co-founder and CEO of Ramen VR. “Closing this important round of funding will help us grow our team so we can continue to build out our vision. We are fortunate to collaborate with these exceptional investment partners who believe in us as we continue to support Zenith throughout the game’s lifecycle.”
Ramen VR gained quick success on Kickstarter in a 2019 campaign that raised $280,000 to create the VR-native MMORPG for PC VR headsets, Meta Quest and PSVR. Since its January 2023 launch, Zenith: The Last City has been a resounding success: the game currently sits at the top-5 most popular games on the Quest platform.
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