Video Game, Media and Technology Veterans Launch GGWP to Combat Game Toxicity, Raise $12M Seed Funding

BITKRAFT Ventures, with Makers Fund, Griffin Gaming Partners, Sony Innovation Fund, and Riot Games, Invest in AI-Powered Moderation Platform

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2022–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GGWP, an AI-powered games and content moderation solution, founded by games entrepreneur Dennis Fong, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and data and AI expert, Dr. George Ng, was introduced today. The company has raised $12M from expert VCs, platforms, game companies and a world-class group of games entrepreneurs and executives, signaling industry-wide support to solve the massive problem of online toxicity in games. BITKRAFT Ventures led the seed round, with co-investors including Makers Fund, Griffin Gaming Partners (GGP), Sony Innovation Fund, Riot Games, as well as key industry figures such as Twitch founders Emmett Shear and Kevin Lin, founder of YouTube Steve Chen, Krafton CEO CH Kim, influencer and gamer personality Pokimane, and others.

GGWP, a nod to “Good Game, Well Played,” was created with the mission to democratize positive play using technology. Online games have a documented and massive problem: there are millions of toxicity-related complaints and reports across the biggest titles daily, making the task impossible to address and scale with human moderators alone. GGWP’s platform allows publishers to customize a moderation system that can catch, contextualize and respond to every single incident reported.

“There’s a lot of research that shows bad behavior is bad for business,” Dennis Fong, CEO, GGWP, said. “22% of players have quit playing a game due to toxicity. With GGWP, we are modernizing game moderation. With the ability to respond at scale, we can dramatically improve game experiences, and in turn improve game businesses.”

GGWP is a smart, AI-powered moderation platform that enables publishers to easily view a game’s aggregate community health, review incidents that occur with contextual information, and understand each players’ overall impact in the community. As simple as calling an API to get started, GGWP is remarkably easy for developers to use and integrate into their games.

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GGWP’s player report management system aggregates, triages, and prioritizes player reports and provides context around incidents by displaying historical and holistic data on the players involved, including their reputation scores, credibility rating, and the severity of the incident.

GGWP’s models can automatically detect disruptive behavior like AFKing out of a match, griefing, intentional friendly fire, feeding, and speed hacking, as well as chat-based toxicity such as identity hate, incitement to self-harm, and criticizing gameplay. Its chat models also uniquely take a comprehensive and nuanced view of a chat incident by taking context and sentiment into account.

“GGWP has an effective and easy to use platform powered by incredibly sophisticated technology,” Jens Hilgers, BITKRAFT Ventures, said. “The games industry desperately needs GGWP’s AI based moderation, and if you consider the fact that we all increasingly live online, social media and other online spaces will need solutions for toxicity in our digital societies.”

“Gaming has grown into an incredible force in entertainment, but it’s also become increasingly more difficult to address toxic behaviors that are often associated with many games today,” said Joseph Tou, Managing Director of Sony Ventures. “Gaming should be fun for all. We are thrilled to support GGWP and its innovative AI approach to both detect bad behavior in games and encourage positive gameplay.”

“Riot believes that gaming is for everybody and we’re passionate about fostering a community that is welcoming for all,” said Brendan Mulligan, Director of Corporate Development, Riot Games. “The team at GGWP truly shares that passion and we’re excited to see them provide powerful, scalable tools for sustaining healthy communities to our peers of all sizes across the industry.”

To learn more about GGWP, please visit www.ggwp.com.

About GGWP
GGWP, founded by games and media veterans, is an artificial intelligence-based platform to help combat toxicity in online games. The company is backed by leading investors and game companies including BITKRAFT Ventures, Makers Fund, Griffin Gaming Partners, and Riot Games. Publishers and developers can learn more about how to fight online toxicity with GGWP at www.ggwp.com

About BITKRAFT Ventures
BITKRAFT Ventures is a leading investment platform for gaming and Web3 globally, and has been the most active gaming venture capital firm and lead investor in 2020 and 2021, according to research from InvestGame and Drake Star Partners. Founded by industry pioneer Jens Hilgers, BITKRAFT serves a worldwide network that spans many of the industry’s forward-thinking startups and founders—including former executives from the likes of Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Epic Games, Google, and Apple who are working to build and operate the virtual worlds and economies of the future. BITKRAFT operates five venture funds with a total of over $570M in assets under management and has over 80 companies in its global portfolio as of January 2022.

BITKRAFT’s experienced international team works closely with exceptional entrepreneurs to create significant value through early candid partnerships, unique domain experience, entrepreneurial history, and a global ecosystem of strategic partners. Find out more about how BITKRAFT and its portfolio companies are pushing the boundaries of Synthetic Reality® by visiting https://www.bitkraft.vc/vision.

About Makers Fund
Makers Fund is a global interactive entertainment venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments. Makers is dedicated to furthering growth and innovation in the interactive entertainment industry. With more than 90 portfolio companies to date, Makers provides founders strategic value that is deeply catered to companies across the value chain in the industry. For more information, visit makersfund.com.

About Griffin Gaming Partners
Griffin Gaming Partners is one of the world’s largest venture capital firms singularly focused on the global gaming market with over $1B AUM. The firm was founded by Peter Levin, Phil Sanderson, and Nick Tuosto, with LionTree as a strategic partner to the Fund. Griffin invests globally in seed through growth stages in both content and infrastructure companies such as Forte, WinZO, Overwolf, Discord, AppLovin, Tactile, Spyke Games, Neon, DeHorizon, SuperTeam, and Palm. For disclaimers and more information: https://griffingp.com/

About Sony Ventures Corporation
Sony Ventures Corporation manages the Sony Innovation Fund (SIF), which invests in all stages of emerging technology companies as well as in startups solving global environmental challenges. SIF engages with pioneering startups to help fuel the development of disruptive technologies, launch new businesses, and contribute to the environment while seeking return on investment. Sony Ventures Corporation is headquartered in Japan.

About Riot Games
Riot Games was founded in 2006 to change the way video games are developed, published, and supported for players. In 2009, Riot released its debut title, League of Legends, to worldwide acclaim. League has gone on to be the most-played PC game in the world and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports. As League enters its second decade, Riot continues to evolve the game while delivering new experiences to players with Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, VALORANT, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and multiple work-in-progress titles. Riot is also expanding the world of Runeterra through multimedia projects across music, comic books, board games, and the animated series Arcane.

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