Investors are betting on user-generated content, and Gamebeast's founder explains why

Equity

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4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Zander Brumbaugh, the 22-year-old founder of Gamebeast, a startup that offers Roblox developers tools like A/B testing and LiveOps to modify games without needing to release a new version or interrupt a user’s ongoing game. Gamebeast recently raised a $3.7 million pre-seed round, led by J2 Ventures with participation from a16z’s Speedrun accelerator, which Brumbaugh graduated from in March. Brumbaugh said everything from his experience consulting for entertainment studios like Netflix, and writing a best-selling book on Roblox development, to chats with investors tell him that the future of video gaming is in user-generated content, or UGC. The two discussed the rise in popularity of UGC games, a sector that investors are increasingly looking towards as drivers of growth in the video game industry. Brumbaugh didn’t only get investment for his startup because investors see the value in enabling UGC game development. J2 Ventures’ thesis focuses on dual-use technology, and Gamebeast was able to demonstrate how its tech has applications both in commercial and defense. And indeed, we’re seeing a trend of companies going for that sweet military money to stay afloat. There are more insights about the future of the video game market and investor insights aplenty, so have a listen, and enjoy!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is presented by Mercury, the FinTech that simplifies how more than 200,000 businesses operate. Hello and welcome back to Equity. Tech Crunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:23.7	I'm Rebecca Belan and this is our Wednesday episode where we home in on a trend in the tech world
0:28.0	and dive deep.
0:29.0	Today we're talking to Zander Brumba, founder of Game Beast, a startup that offers Roblox developers tools like
0:34.9	AB testing and live ops to modify games without needing to release a new version or interrupt
0:40.1	a user's ongoing game.
0:42.0	This is standard stuff in the gaming industry that for
0:44.2	whatever reason was missing from Roblox and Zander caught that and decided to make a
0:48.5	business out of it so Zander welcome to the show. Thank you Rebecca. Now
0:51.8	Game Beast recently raised a 3.7 million
0:56.1	dollar pre-seed led by J2 Ventures with participation from A16Z speed run and
1:00.8	others and I believe you're working with around like 40 developers so far
1:04.2	you're in talks with the US military about a no code platform that can be used
1:08.7	you're also I just want our listeners to know only 22. You already have a lot under your belt and aside from your
1:17.2	startup I actually love to hear a little bit more about your background, your consulting background,
1:21.0	the book you've written. Tell us a little more about yourself.
1:24.0	Absolutely. So I've been on the Roblox platform a little over 10 years now, and I've created a bunch of top games,
1:30.8	some of which even were number one on the platform for a time.
1:34.1	And my time on the platform, my games have been played around half a billion times globally.
1:38.2	Some peaks at over 80,000 concurrent users, got a few physical toy lines that were distributed across the US and retail stores, and I also
1:46.0	wrote a best-selling book series called Coding Robox Games Made Easy.
1:49.6	And yeah, so at my previous company I was working with a bunch of Hollywood studios and publishers to bring their IP to the
	...

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