Rec Room, a social VR gaming platform, announced on Monday that it secured a $145 million investment to close out the year. The latest funding round was led by Coatue Management and included participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Madrona Venture Group.
Seattle-based Rec Room is an online multiplayer game where users can join with friends and chat, play task-based games or build games of their own. The company launched in 2016 and with the recent investment is now valued at a whopping $3.5 billion. Back in March, the company was valued at $1.25 billion after securing a $100 million investment.
“We love the world Rec Room has created for friends to build and play together,” Matt Mazzeo, general partner at Coatue Management, said in a statement. “From phones to VR, millions of players are hanging out in Rec Room, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they make the digital world more fun and immersive.”
Rec Room originally launched as a VR exclusive platform requiring the use of a VR headset, however, it has since been ported over to other platforms including PC, PlayStation, Xbox and even mobile. Rec Room is also free to play.
Similar to other digital social games, Rec Room offers developer kits on its website that allows users to create their own mini-games or social spaces. These types of features help create a metaverse-like environment for games and help gain mass appeal as seen with Roblox, which after gaining a large user base and several high-profile investments went public with a valuation of $41.9 billion.
“It’s been amazing to watch Rec Room grow from a tiny collection of mini-games into a global platform with millions of experiences built by the community. The platform has become a place where people can come together to form meaningful connections, build communities and share their creativity,” Nick Fajt, CEO and co-founder of Rec Room, said in a statement. “There’s still so much more we want to do, and as we head into 2022, we’re excited to build more experiences, expand to new platforms, invest in best-in-class trust and safety systems and continue to expand our creator tools.”
According to Rec Room, its platform now has over 37 million world users its monthly user count has grown 450 percent since November 2020.
Although it’s unclear exactly how Rec Room plans to use its new funding, previous investments were used to grow the company’s employee base.
