Wicked Saints Studios
The mobile gaming category has experienced explosive growth over the past two decades since the release of the Appstore in 2008. Within that expanding market, the interactive story games (ISG) segment is growing 9% annually, with a stronghold in Eastern Europe and Asia, and dominated by the genre of romantic stories.
The Wicked Saints founders recognized a white space opportunity for a new kind of game – broadly speaking, but particularly in this ISG category – targeting Gen Z players in Western markets, primarily in the US. Gen Z-ers spend over 50% of their waking hours on their smartphones – 30% of that on gaming – and are more mission-driven than generations preceding them. Wicked Saints’ flagship game, World Reborn, is fun and engaging, but also mission-oriented with a novel approach to play and monetization, in which the game is powered by sponsored in-real-life actions.
“Most VC’s pick a lane and stick to it. It’s problematic for companies at an intersection of innovation. OVF has a wide range of expert Venture Partners cutting across industries, giving them a multiple landscape perspective.”
During diligence we were impressed with Jess and Alicia. While our thesis for investing in Wicked Saints is underpinned by our faith in these two co-founders, that is not all:
Wicked Saints boasts a world-class team that brings experience in technology (including core tech architecture, infrastructure, and data analytics) and game economy design from top-tier games including Pokémon Go, Angry Birds, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The Walking Dead, among others.
With only pre-seed funding, Wicked Saints had run a successful pilot of their flagship game with incredible D1-D7 metrics and strong positive signals from their target audience.
We appreciated the team’s focus and clarity on execution and what they needed to do to stand out on crowded mobile platforms. Their out-of-the-box approach to power games by actions in the real world is differentiated.
Read the full story: why we invested
Advice for Entrepreneurs from Wicked Saints Founders, Jessica Murrey and Alicia Clifton
"People over product. It's easy for us founders to fall in love with our product. But our product will (and should) change. Spend that love and focus cultivating the right team to build it. The right people make the best products."