April 24, 2024

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Nyou, a South Korean startup developing a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has received 9.8 billion won ($8.2 million) in series B funding, the company said on May 30.

The funding was sourced from Kakao Ventures, Daesung Private Equity, DSC Investment, Idea Bridge Partners, Maple Investment Partners, Yuanta Securities Korea and Earnest Ventures. Kakao Ventures is Nyou’s existing investor in series A round in the first half of 2018.

Nyou CEO Kim Jung-hwan

Founded in 2016, Nyou has been developing its first MMORPG for personal computers, tentatively titled “Project N1.” It would be a medieval game powered by Unreal Engine 4, which allows the virtual world setting to change according to players’ in-game decision.

Nyou is led by CEO Kim Jung-hwan. He was formerly managing director and senior director for Korea publishing at Blizzard Entertainment and CEO of NC Taiwan.

“The PC MMORPG market is highly valuable in terms of sustainable growth driven by global platforms like Steam and loyal fans” Jacob Kim, associate at Kakao Ventures, said in a release. “Moreover, Nyou team’s long-term engagement and insight in gaming industry is drawing anticipation for original content development and operation.”

Nyou is headquartered in Pangyo, a technology hub in Gyeonggi Province.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)