Pragma raises $ 12.75m for Backend Game Engine for live games

ThresholdBacked Game Engine Empowering Studios to build scales live games, has said it has raised $ 12.75 million in strategic funding.

ThresholdFunding includes the participation of the best risk companies in the industry and Square Enix, a global leader in the publication and development of the game. The new investment has brought the company’s total funds raised to over $ 50 million.

Los Angeles-based Pragma is founded by engineering veterans that have built platforms for some of the largest live games, including League of Legends and Destiny 2.

Pragma Engine feeds matches, analyzes, monetization, players’ data and others, which allows developers to improve their creativity in the construction of games while unloading the complexity of building a stable multiplayer infrastructure. Studios like Gardens Interactive, People can fly, Frost Giant Studios, Square Enix external studios and more use Pragma to power their games.

“This investment is based on our commitment to support the innovation and high achievements in the game industry,” said Hideaki Uehara, General Manager for Investment and Development of Business at Square Enix Holdings. “Pragma’s avant -garde solutions deliver seamless and scalable games. We believe that this cooperation will lead to significant growth and innovation, taking advantage of both our company and the wider gaming community. “

This investment marks a major stage for the threshold and enhances the constant success of the mission of the threshold to provide the studios with the most healthy and flexible gaming infrastructure. With this strategic round of investment, Pragma will further deepen its set of live service tools and services and allow strategic activity for M&A, if necessary. In addition, Square Enix’s investment gives them strategic access to Pragma’s technical expertise.

“Square Enix is ​​known for delivering immersive, high quality games for games, and their investment is a testament to the power of our technology and vision,” says Eden Chen, CEO of Pragma. “This partnership allows us to accelerate the development of products, which will allow customers to receive their game online cheaper and faster, on scale, with better tools for growing a community and holding their players.”

With the addition of a recently acquired Platform for Players Firstlook, Pragma now serves both the rear and the player’s front to start any online game.

After the start of Firstlook in 2024, the company helped the board of over 100,000 players, facilitated 100+ Playtest events and supported 30 communities of discord. Developers who already use Pragma will be able to use the latest FIRSTLOOK integration features, including the ability to reward player rights and manage limited access events seamlessly.

Pragma has helped build some of the largest video games and allocated systems in the world of Riot Games, Popcap, Google, Amazon and EA for games like League of Legends, Valorant, Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Eve Online.

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Other investors include Aupfront Ventures, Greylock Partners and Partners Insight. Pragma has more than 50 employees. It was founded in 2020 by Eden chen and Chris CobbS

Before establishing a threshold, Chen founded Fishing laboratories which have built VR/XR and other technological solutions for some of the largest technology companies, including SNAP, META and others. Eden is one of the best active investors and angels advisers in the game industry, investing in over 80 plus games for games and gaming technologies in the last five years.

Prior to establishing Pragma, Cobb was the host of Riot Games’s Backend Tech, where he sent a patented match system that allowed for trouble -free, racing matches for tens of millions of League of Legends players worldwide. Cobb also built and managed the player’s behavior team, and Cobb was also CEO of Bot School Prior to acquired by Phoenix Labs, he has delivered many other successful online games throughout his career, including Dauntless, Bejeweled Blitz, Plants VS Zombies and many more.

As for the inspiration, Chen and Cobt had experience first-hand experience to build live infrastructures for huge titles such as League of Legends and Destiny 2. They realized that the studios restore a sophisticated infrastructure every time they were building a game, so they started to build tools to help them. game), saving them time and money.

In the light of the latest macroeconomic challenges, including increased games for games and related cuts, Pragma has been designed to help reduce the huge advance costs that enter the development of online game without sacrificing quality, reliability and flexibility.

Pragma democratizes the process of developing games by building a healthy, modular backend platform. The engine allows developers to launch online experience without massive engineering teams, giving developers more time to focus on the creative side of the development of the game and unloading the complexity of the development of the backend.

Their founding thesis turned out to be correct: last year had 18 927 games Issued on Steam, and 2025 seems to be increasing in this matter. Numerous studios continue to fire incredible developers – a number of which have erupted to make their own games and IP, the market continues to grow. And many of these people traditionally play creators– Not with engineers – with a threshold here, to make sure that all their needs for online services are satisfied immediately outside the box.

Playfab is the main competitor in space. Playfab was founded in 2014 and the focus is mainly on casual mobile games; Eventually sold to Microsoft in 2018. Since then, online service games have been drastically increasing in complexity (eg PC/Console and Battle Royales were not even something) and no other backend product has kept up with the needs of the evolution and development of these games.

Most companies in the space provide a basic set of tools to get a game online, but Pragma has said it is the only company that offers a fully personalized Backend game engine with a set of tools that give the studio the flexibility of playing their game online. Pragma feeds matches, content management, live operations and others, offering a convenient system designed for long -term flexibility and growth of the game.

Plus this, the recent acquisition of a threshold of Primal It now offers Studios a complete solution to develop games. Pragma helps the studios (such as Dreamhaven, Stoke Games and Night Street, 30+ in two months) get games online, and Firstlook helps developers engage and develop their player communities, leading to more successful startup games.

Some of the games using Pragma include Spectrum., Predecessor., Stormgateand The upcoming flagship fantasy adventure game of GARDENS. Pragma recently helped to power the early start of access to Skyveil seekersCreated by former RIOT developers David Banks and Christina Norman.