Iconsoftheia
Icons of Theia - a tactical turn based strategy game.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor | €0.0 | round |
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
* | $2.4m | Seed | |
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Theia Studios, operating under the brand Icons of Theia, is a US-based independent game studio founded in 2020 by the co-founders of the fantasy esports platform, DraftBuff. The leadership team includes CEO Dylan Sena, CTO Kaustubh Garimella, and CRO Guilherme Arten-Meyer, who bring their experience from DraftBuff, which attracted over 150,000 users. They are joined by Chief Creative Director Fino Feng. The team's prior success in building a large user base for a social gaming application provides a strong foundation for their current venture in the web3 gaming space.
The company is developing a decentralized platform for strategy games, with its first title being "Icons of Theia". This initial game is a free-to-play, turn-based tactical strategy game available for Android and iOS, drawing inspiration from titles like Fire Emblem, Chess, and League of Legends. In the game, players assemble a team of four heroes, known as 'Icons', and compete in player-versus-player matches to control the map and defeat the opposing team. While the game is free, it incorporates cosmetic NFTs, such as skins, which do not affect gameplay balance, ensuring a skill-based experience. Revenue generation is anticipated through an in-game shop for characters and cosmetics, and a user marketplace.
A core component of Theia Studios' business model is a creator platform that empowers the community. This platform provides a suite of tools, including a map editor, asset pipeline, and scripting framework, allowing users to create and monetize their own games and content within the Theia ecosystem. This "create-to-earn" model aims to financially reward creators for their contributions, a feature the founders noted was missing from the origins of popular genres like MOBAs and battle royales that started as community mods. Theia Studios plans to foster a long-term, sustainable ecosystem rather than focusing on short-term token sales. In November 2022, the company announced it had raised $3 million from investors including Hashed, Lancer Capital, and SnackClub to fund the development of its creator platform and game ecosystem.
Keywords: Theia Studios, Icons of Theia, web3 gaming, tactical strategy game, turn-based strategy, mobile gaming, create-to-earn, decentralized gaming, blockchain gaming, NFT cosmetics, player-versus-player, game development, fantasy esports, DraftBuff, Dylan Sena, Kaustubh Garimella, Guilherme Arten-Meyer, modding platform, user-generated content, free-to-play, game monetization