Hong Kong software startup Area28 secures over $2.1m from Alibaba, Vectr, others

Hong Kong-based startup Area28 has raised a little over US$2.1 million in a seed round led by global early-stage VC firm Vectr Ventures and Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.

Local funds Apes Ventures, Bright Success Capital, and Ironfire Ventures also participated in the round.

Photo credit: Danny Meneses

Established in 2017, Area28 is building a commercially available cloud-based collaboration platform and game engine. It seeks to enable game developers from anywhere in the world to create projects together simultaneously in real time, improving efficiency and lowering costs of gameplay and distribution.

The startup is also developing an engine-agnostic cloud collaboration layer that could allow game developers to maintain current workflows while accessing the Area28 cloud.

It plans to use the fresh funds to scale its teams in Hong Kong and China and support the final stages of product development before a commercial launch.

“With China being one of the world’s biggest markets for games, we are looking forward to helping Area28 service this market through collaboration leveraging the Alibaba ecosystem,” said Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund executive director Cindy Chow.

Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund is a roughly US$130 million not-for-profit foundation started by Jack Ma in 2015 to support startups in the city.

Prior to its investment in Area28, the fund participated in a roughly US$1.3 million pre-series A round for local media analytics platform Cloudbreakr. Shortly after that, it announced its investment in software-as-a-service firm Lynk, alongside Wavemaker Partners and MassMutual Ventures, which led the funding round.