American company Upfront Ventures and Danish firm Sunstone Capital have jointly invested EUR 1.7 million in Seriously Digital Entertainment, a company founded in August. What makes the investment exceptional is that the company in question has yet to produce a single product.
— It’s a demonstration of the level of confidence that exists in the Finnish games industry. Seriously is one of the most interesting things happening in the Finnish games sector at the moment, with veterans in the process of creating something new from a clean slate, says the co-founder of the company Petri Järvilehto in an interview with the magazine Talouselämä.
Järvilehto and co-founder Andrew Stalbow are looking to put together a team of top professionals for Seriously. The first games are scheduled for release in 2014.
Both of the company’s founders are games industry veterans. Järvilehto is the former Executive Vice President of Games at Rovio and Creative Director at Remedy, the originator of successful games such as Alan Wake and Max Payne. Stalbow was in charge of Rovio’s commercial strategy. Prior to working at Rovio, Stalbow held a position in 20th Century Fox’s mobile unit.
The Seriously game studio is located in Helsinki, but its marketing is handled out of Los Angeles. At the moment, the company employs three people in addition to its founders. The goal is to have altogether ten employees by the end of the year and 20–30 in 2014. Seriously’s mission is to take gaming to the next level and create even more addictive mobile games for the Apple iOS and Android operating systems.
Article is published in cooperation with Good News from Finland.
