Mentioned in this article
- Mobile gaming company Bazooka Tango raised $2.5M USD in a seed funding round led by BITKRAFT Esports Ventures, with MTG, Mergelane, and others participating.
- Bazooka Tango partnered with Vainglory developer Super Evil Megacorp to create its first title, Vainglory All Stars.
- In February, global mobile game downloads increased by 39%, primarily due to the effects of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on public life.
Today, mobile gaming company Bazooka Tango announced that it has raised a $2.5M seed funding led by BITKRAFT Esports Ventures, with Modern Times Group (MTG), Mergelane, and others participating.
“Having worked to first bring core multiplayer gaming to mobile in 2012, it is only natural that the Bazooka Tango team would lead the next chapter of mobile-first AAA,” said Scott Rupp, a partner with BITKRAFT Esports Ventures. “We are excited to see some of the brightest and most experienced minds from the games publishing and developer world coming together to spearhead the next era of multiplayer mobile games.”
Bazooka Tango was founded in March 2019 by two game industry veterans, Bo Daly and Stephan Sherman. Daly, who serves as the company’s CEO, and Sherman, who is Bazooka Tango’s CPO, previously co-founded Super Evil MegaCorp, where they created the mobile multi online battle arena (MOBA) Vainglory. The duo recruited an 11 person team of gaming veterans with decades of combined experience working with mobile, PC, and console game developers and publishers, including Riot Games, Rockstar, EA, and NCSoft.
Daly and Sherman leveraged their relationship with the developer they previously founded, Super Evil Megacorp, forging a partnership to create Bazooka Tango’s first title, Vainglory All Stars. Bazooka Tango will use the Super Evil Megacorp’s proprietary E.V.I.L. game development engine, IP, and universe to try and bring an all-new Vainglory experience to market quickly and cost-effectively. The title is expected to soft launch this Spring.
In addition to their partnership with Super Evil Megacorp, Bazooka Tango stated that it also works on creating “new original IP titles to establish a portfolio that features a mix of games in successful mobile genres, mobile adaptations of hit PC and console genres, novel cross-genre ‘remixes,’ and ambitious genre-defining titles.”
In recent weeks, mobile gaming experienced a rapid increase in demand, which was primarily caused by public life grinding to a halt in many countries in response to a global outbreak of respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that was first detected in China. In February, global mobile game downloads increased by 39%, according to Reuters. By March, the virus spread to more than 100 locations worldwide including the U.S., Canada, and most European Union countries, which will probably further boost the demand for at-home entertainment such as mobile, PC, and console gaming, as more and more countries are restricting public life in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus to avoid overload the capacities of their health care systems.
