Verse8, an AI-native platform that enables creators to instantly turn ideas into playable games, today announced the completion of a $5 million seed round. The round was co-led by Story Foundation, NEXPACE (Nexon’s Web3 division), Neowiz, MARBLEX (Netmarble’s Web3 division), Solarium Labs, and NEXUS, with additional participation from investors across the gaming, media, and technology sectors.
The new funding will be used to advance Verse8’s core AI system, expand creator onboarding and incentive programs, and scale its publishing and distribution infrastructure.
This funding round comes at a pivotal turning point in the evolution of interactive media. Generative AI is dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of content creation, yet the development of interactive experiences remains constrained by lengthy production cycles, large teams, and centralized studios. Billions of people worldwide create videos, music, and images, but only a tiny fraction possess the skills and tools needed to make games. Verse8 is built specifically to meet this inflection point, enabling anyone to create real-time, multiplayer games.
Verse8 allows creators to generate fully playable multiplayer games in minutes using natural language prompts—no coding, engine installation, or large production teams required. A simple idea can become a real-time interactive experience, instantly deployed and accessible to players worldwide.
Since its launch in July 2024, the platform has surpassed 3.5 million monthly active users for game creation and play, with over 5,000 active creators producing 25,000 games.
Verse8 was co-founded by JC Kim and Kevin Lee, seasoned entrepreneurs with extensive experience in blockchain gaming, platform development, and strategic investments. Their background includes launching blockchain initiatives at LINE, successfully founding and exiting startups, and deploying over $200 million in gaming investments, enabling Verse8 to prioritize speed, accessibility, and creative iteration from its inception.
Jake Song, the co-founder of Nexon and the creator of Korea’s iconic Lineage series, will serve as a core advisor, providing strategic guidance to Verse8’s AI-driven gaming platform.
Reimagine the creation of interactive media
Modern game development is capital- and labor-intensive, typically requiring long production cycles, multidisciplinary teams, and budgets reaching tens of millions of dollars, concentrating creative and economic power in the hands of a few studios. Verse8 dramatically lowers these barriers by enabling creators to transform text prompts into live, shared game worlds in minutes, enabling large-scale experimentation and creativity.
“Only about 3 million creators worldwide are producing interactive content, and the top 20 studios control 70% of the output,” said Kevin Lee, CEO of Verse8. “Verse8 is changing this dynamic. By compressing the tools of a full game studio into a single prompt, we enable all creators to engage in interactive creation. This funding allows us to deepen our technology and expand an ecosystem where creativity builds upon itself rather than starting from scratch.”
S.Y. Lee, Co-founder and CEO of Story, said: “AI is lowering the cost of creation across all media formats, but gaming has remained the last frontier. Verse8 is tackling the most difficult part of this problem—compressing months of development and millions of dollars into minutes of natural language prompts, and doing so from day one with a framework that coordinates creators, IP holders, and distribution channels. We believe this marks the beginning of a new creation stack for interactive media, with Verse8 at its center.”
Verse8 automates art, code, design, and quality assurance while supporting continuous iteration and deployment. Integrated with Story, it enables on-chain ownership, licensing, and distribution, allowing creators to retain attribution, earn revenue, and safely remix existing IP.
Verse8 believes this approach lays the foundation for a new category of creator-driven, AI-native interactive media, with gaming representing the first scalable use case in the broader shift in how digital content is created, owned, and distributed.
About Verse8
Verse8 is an AI-native creation and publishing platform that enables anyone to turn ideas into interactive games and stories. By combining generative AI, an integrated game engine, and on-chain ownership, Verse8 lowers the barrier to interactive creation and empowers a new generation of creator-driven digital worlds. Developed in collaboration between Planetarium Labs and Jake Song, the platform leverages deep gaming expertise and strategic partnerships to deliver high-fidelity interactive experiences at scale.