The Games Fund

The Games Fund

The Games Fund was founded by gaming operators Ilya Eremeev and Maria Kochmola, both of whom brought direct studio management and production experience to the Los Angeles-based venture firm. Eremeev previously co-founded 101XP, a publisher in Eastern Europe and CIS markets, while Kochmola led publishing operations. Their transition to institutional investing formalized a thesis that generalist investors undervalue games as an investable category because they lack the domain fluency to assess pre-revenue studios against production milestones, not just financial projections. The firm targets early-stage investments across PC, console, and mobile platforms, typically leading seed and Series A rounds with initial checks sized to fund core development teams through a vertical slice or soft launch. The strategy spans free-to-play and premium business models, with a portfolio that includes studios working in the mid-core and hardcore segments where production complexity creates a barrier to entry for less-specialized competitors. Geographic coverage extends from North American developers to studios in Eastern Europe and CIS markets, a corridor where Eremeev and Kochmola maintain deep origination networks from their prior operating careers. The fund structure allows for both direct equity positions and SPV co-investment alongside other games-focused investors. Team size and total committed capital remain private. The firm operates from its Los Angeles headquarters, a location that places it near North America's largest concentration of game development talent while maintaining connectivity to European publishing partners. The partnership's day-to-day investment activity combines principal-led sourcing with a reliance on developer referrals from inside the portfolio — a signal that the firm's value proposition to founders rests on production counsel, not just capital deployment. In recent years, The Games Fund has publicly backed studios through seed rounds, often as the lead or co-lead investor, though the firm does not disclose a fund-level deployment figure. The structural differentiator is a partnership composed entirely of former game developers and publishers rather than finance professionals who later specialized in interactive entertainment. This operator-first composition lets the fund underwrite studio risk by evaluating creative milestones — concept documentation, prototype builds, community feedback loops — that most venture capital firms treat as unquantifiable. The governance architecture couples that edge with a concentrated portfolio approach, suggesting a high-conviction, hands-on model rather than an index of the sector.