You’ve closed the funding round for your games company – Hooray!
No doubt you’re excited to tell the world and get started building out your future. A successful investment round is a significant milestone for any games company – especially those in their early stages.
But before you begin sharing the good news, it’s important to get your PR house in order when it comes to your games funding announcement.
You may just want to #HumbleBrag on LinkedIn about how much money you’ve raised or thank your investors for contributing to the business, but rushing in can risk diluting your story and undermining its potential to build your presence in the games industry – especially if you want to go out to press.
So, before you begin speaking about your raise, here are four things you need to consider before you announce your funding story.
1. The Number Isn’t Enough: How to Make Your Games Funding Announcement Media-Worthy
Obviously, the big question everyone will want to ask is, “How much?”
No doubt you’ll have a general number in your head that you want to tell people about. But to get interest from the media, potential partners and future investors, there’s a bit more you need to consider.
Firstly, how does that money break down?
Sure, you may want to avoid going into granular detail, but some additional information will make the story more attractive to the media.
If you have a lead investor, it always helps to highlight how much of the total raise they contributed – if circumstances don’t allow you to be that specific, simply highlighting the lead investor can be good enough.
This is particularly true if the investors already have a good reputation and have been in the media before, which is easy enough to find out.
Going further, you’ll want to outline clearly what investment stage this was.
Now, for some of you, this will be a no-brainer, but it’s very common that the lines can blur depending on the business’s makeup.
Maybe it’s a seed, a pre-seed, or a friends and family round (I’ve even had some conversations where people have wanted to announce a pre-pre-seed round!)
The thing is, you can’t be vague here.
Identifying the type of raise often goes hand in hand with naming the exact amount- perhaps you want to keep the raise open in case a bit more comes in, or maybe you want to upgrade your pre-seed to a seed round should an investor get back to you.
If anything like this is still up for debate, it’s best to shelve conversations until the final amount is known.
You also need to remember that the journalists you speak to will have covered loads of funding announcements before and are very familiar with all the terminology.
They’ll understand that early-stage investments can often be quite small amounts of money compared to what can be raised down the line in a series A or B round; it’s about investing in potential.
So don’t be afraid to lean into this.
A final point on the raise is recognising how much investment will draw the media’s attention to your game funding announcement.
Some high-profile publications will only cover investment raises of a certain amount (yes, even pre-seed rounds), while others will be a bit more flexible if the broader story is interesting.
For example, if your company is in an area of gaming or tech that is getting a lot of attention, understanding this will impact your overall strategy and the likely results you’ll achieve.
If you really want to see how games funding announcements grab the news, then keep an eye on key industry sites like Gamesindustry.biz or GamesBeat. There are also newsletters to keep an eye on that also talk about investment that they think is interesting such as Investgame, Video Games Industry Memo and the Naavik Digest.
2. The Power of Names: Including Investors for PR Success
You may have your lead investor’s name ready to be included in the your games funding announcement , but what about everyone else?
Perhaps you have a well-known Angel investor you want to highlight, or maybe some other smaller contributors with an established name in the industry.
Knowing who is involved and speaking with someone in the know can help identify which individuals or organisations will appeal to the media.
For example, we’ve worked with Danish and Swedish start-ups whose investment has come from Angels, who are well-known in Scandinavian circles but not really outside of that.
The upside was that we knew we could secure good local coverage for them, but the downside was that US media was less interested.
The key was understanding the profiles of the specific investors and how that affected the PR thinking.
Then comes a potentially tricky situation- quotes.
You’ll want to talk to yourself about what this investment means to your business, but having quotes from a noted investor or VC can give your games funding announcement a lot more traction in the press.
The challenge is that not everyone can and should be quoted in a news announcement. Of course, every investment has helped you close the round, but quoting every single individual will make the release long and dilute its impact.
Ideally, you only want one quote (excluding your own) in the announcement.
Who and what they say will change depending on the spokesperson, but encouraging them to say more than the standard “we’re delighted to have invested in…” will give the quote meaning and provide value to the media.
Remember! The best press release quotes sound like something the person being quoted would actually say!
But what if your hands are tied?
Well, you can squeeze in a third quote if the spokesperson will draw greater interest (again, it’s best to check with someone in the know to determine whether that is the case).
Alternatively, having several additional quotes in the ‘notes to editors’ section will keep your news announcement concise while still allowing these contributions to potentially be featured—just make sure to remind everyone involved that journalists are not obliged to quote anyone in their write-up.
3. Show Your Roadmap: Giving the Media a Glimpse of Your Future
Money and established names are all well and good, but to really emphasise the value of this investment, you’ll need to talk about the next steps.
In other words, what are you going to do with the investment?
Of course, we’re not telling you to provide a five-year plan for the business or share insight that could harm your competitive edge, but simply announcing that you’ve secured some funds won’t be enough for the press.
What will be of interest to the media in your funding announcement will change based on your company?
An innovative tech solution using the investment to enhance the software will sound exciting, as will using the funds to accelerate the go-to-market on a cool new piece of hardware.
But it doesn’t have to be this specific if you’re using the money to grow the company or to expand your offering to new regions that will also be interesting to share.
The trick is to avoid being vague while not giving too much away and still having something interesting to say.
Finding this balance will appeal to the media and allow them to see your company’s direction – as well as potentially setting yourself up for your next bit of PR.
4. Amplifying Your Message: Tapping into Industry Trends for Greater Impact
The media receives a lot of funding stories, even with the current market landscape of the games industry.
So unless the investment is so big it’s newsworthy on its own, you need to get across the positive difference you plan to make to the games industry.
Call it the “so what?” factor.
An early-stage company will rarely have a solution that will revolutionise the entire sector, so it’s essential you don’t exaggerate the potential impact.
However, the future value your company hopes to create allows journalists to frame the investment as part of a bigger story.
You might even want to link it to current industry trends, such as the growth in AI or the challenges that many studios have faced in recent months.
If you’re struggling to come up with the right angle, don’t be afraid to contact experts or sign up for industry newsletters (like our own Daily Download) to keep in the loop about the trends your company will affect.
Of course, these four steps are just the basics – there’s a lot of things we’ve not touched on, from social media strategy to internal communications.
However, before you get to that, you need to have the foundations in place. Getting these first four steps right will ensure you can effectively announce your raise to the press.
Keen to know if your funding round could gain media attention? Get in touch!
