Strider, the collaborative storytelling platform has raised $5.5 million in a seed round. The round was co-led by Makers Fund and Fabric Ventures, with participation from Shima Capital, Sfermion, Magic Eden and others.
This latest round brings the company’s total funding to $8.5 million. Strider was founded by game industry veterans, with former EA, Rockstar and Jam City executives at the helm. The team has roots in narrative games with experience from popular titles such as Harry Potter, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Westworld and Dead Space.
Strider is setting out on a mission to allow everyone to be a creative storyteller. The team hopes to bring people into the heart of story creation through a powerful, fun toolset that includes social features centred around creating a story world. People can collaborate on characters, settings, history and the lore that unfolds in a fast accessible interface.
Creating stories
In addition, Strider also aims to give creatives the power to be the owner of their creations. This means that contributors gain a unique opportunity to retain ownership as they build with the community. The new funds will expand the current Strider team and help to bring content creators to the platform with tools for production and distribution.
Andrew N. Green, co-founder and CEO at Strider, commented on the company’s goal, “At Strider, we believe that everyone, everywhere, is a storyteller, and creating stories together is a lot more fun than doing it alone. We are building a space where people can create and share those stories while being rewarded for their contributions.”
Green went on to say, “We grew up inspired by the incredible worlds of our favourite games, films and books, and spent years helping to build deep, narrative-driven games. Now, we’re excited to build a platform that gives power to fan communities. To give voice and ownership to anyone who wants to be a part of the creative process. We can’t wait to build stories together. This is a game changer for accessible creativity.”
Strider will develop its platform so users can build and grow new worlds together and own part of that creation. The company encourages people of all abilities to come and create stories together. We recently saw other successful seed funding rounds from Nefta and virtual character creators Superplastic.
Paige Cook is a writer with a multi-media background. She has experience covering video games and technology and also has freelance experience in video editing, graphic design, and photography. Paige is a massive fan of the movie industry and loves a good TV show, if she is not watching something interesting then she's probably playing video games or buried in a good book. Her latest addiction is virtual photography and currently spends far too much time taking pretty pictures in games rather than actually finishing them.
