AccelByte scores $60m in SoftBank-led Series B funding

AccelByte, a platform for game backend services and tools, announced that it has raised $60 million in Series B funding.

The investment was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Sony Interactive Entertainment and existing investors Galaxy Interactive and NetEase. The financing follows AccelByte’s $10 million Series A which was led by Galaxy Interactive in August of 2021.

AccelByte’s platform enables developers to quickly build, scale, and operate live service games across the player experience loop, including lobby, friends, matchmaking, cloud progression, achievements, season pass, launcher and patcher, and more.

Built on a microservices architecture, developers can extend individual AccelByte platform services to meet their unique game requirements. The platform is game engine agnostic with Unreal and Unity SDKs available and supports cross-platform play across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

“As games become more complex with the rise of cross-platform multiplayer and live services, there is an increased need for scalable and efficient infrastructure to minimize time to market,” said Robert Kaplan, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers.

“We believe AccelByte has built a leading backend solution for the gaming industry, giving developers the platform and tools to scale games faster, easier, and cheaper. We are thrilled to partner with Jun [Lie] and the team to help them create a one-stop-shop of backend services for game developers spanning from indie to AAA.”

AccelByte’s CEO Jun Lie, who previously built Epic Games’ backend engineering team from the ground up, said, “AccelByte is powered by our developer partners. We work hand in hand with them every day and they teach us what matters most to game creators in the trenches.”

“This funding round will accelerate our efforts to deliver the world’s best game backend platform and provide for those creators — no matter their size — the tools and capability to build and operate modern, AAA-quality live service games at scale,” he added.