Smartphone Maker and F1 Sponsor ROKiT Starts $50 Million Game Development Fund

Smartphone Maker and F1 Racing sponsor ROKiT is launching ROKiT Games Limited, a $50 million fund intended to support independent game development. 

The announcement of the fund came via Cision and was picked up by Gamasutra on July 12th. ROKiT Games Limited will serve as both startup funding as well as an angel investment fund for struggling projects. In exchange for the funds, ROKiT will take an equity stake in any project they invest in. In addition to providing up to $500,000 in funding for projects, ROKiT will also provide a platform for mobile games released on their lineup of smartphones. Funded mobile games will be advertised on the phones’ app store as well as coming preloaded on some phones. 

Industry veteran Jeremie Benhamou will head ROKiT Games. Benhamou is an industry veteran having worked on the Call of Duty franchise at Sledgehammer Games and most recently working in the VR space at WhiteMoon Dreams, makers of  Starblood Arena. 

Co-founder Jonathan Kendrick had this to say about the new effort:

“I have always been very interested in the gaming industry with these investments we can really help some exciting talent bring their games to life and find the next great game.”

The first ROKiT Games funded project has actually already received funds from the program. Ddraig House Games Studio, creators of Lunafone, were the first to accept funds from the new program. Ddraig House Games is a UK based studio which had, until recently, been attempting to raise funds via Kickstarter.

While, in some circles, ROKiT is best known for being a major sponsor of the Williams F1 Racing team, the company is mainly a smartphone producer. The company is focused on making inexpensive but relatively full-featured smartphones in the $200 to $300 price range.

Anyone interested in pitching a project to ROKiT Games Limited should reach out via email at [email protected]