Sarmayacar bets on mobile gaming by investing in Revolving Games
Revolving Games, a brainchild of brothers Ammar Zaeem and Shayan Zaeem who have a decade of mobile game development experience under their belt, is set to launch its first game next year, said Sarmayacar — a venture capital firm for tech startups — in a press statement.
Revolving Games is developing a massively multiplayer online game, bringing together some of the world’s best gaming leadership, with development and design capabilities from a San Francisco office while benefiting from cost advantages that come with operations being primarily based out of Lahore, said the statement.
Kyle Bricker, the executive producer at the San Francisco Studio, brings 25 years of experience in product and software.
After an injection of $12 million from a global publishing giant and a seed investment led by Sarmayacar, Revolving Games is moving towards the launch of its first game in 2021.
“Pakistan’s young engineering talent has the potential to make the country into a game development hub within the global gaming ecosystem," said Rabeel Warraich, founder and CEO of Sarmayacar.
"Revolving Games is a startup that has 10 years of hard work behind it [...]. Our team consists of veteran rock stars that have designed, engineered and produced games that generated over $3 billion in lifetime revenue,” said Ammar.
Shayan, who is the president of Worldwide Studios, added, “We have spent almost a decade training talent in Pakistan, this type of a boutique game studio model is helping our Pakistan team grow at 5x the rate than it previously did in any other partnership."
Ammar and Shayan, along with their brother Saad previously founded Caramel Tech Studios, a leading game studio that originated in Pakistan.
Sarmayacar is a Netherlands-based venture capital firm that invests in budding tech-based startups with the aim to help build "scalable, market-transforming enterprise and consumer technology businesses in Pakistan", according to its website. The company's clients include local startups like Bykea, Dot & Line and Patari, among others.