- SubSPARQ Secures $8.5 Million Seed Funding Round with Participation from Andreessen Horowitz
- The Ras Al Khaimah-based startup aims to empower 250 million creators with an AI-native game engine designed to simplify game development and publishing.
SPARQ, an AI-native game engine and creator platform headquartered in Ras Al Khaimah’s Innovation City, has opened an $8.5 million seed funding round with early participation from Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) Scout Fund.
The company is developing a next-generation game engine that leverages artificial intelligence to simplify game creation by automating coding, asset generation, networking, publishing, and monetization, while allowing creators to retain full control over gameplay design and user experience.
The funding round follows more than two years of product development, during which the founders invested approximately $2.5 million of their own capital to build a proprietary C++ engine featuring AAA-level rendering capabilities.
The company also assembled a team of more than 20 engineers and attracted a waitlist of over 6,000 creators before raising external capital.
According to Christopher Pail, Founder and CEO of SPARQ, artificial intelligence is transforming the economics of game development by removing many of the technical barriers that have traditionally required large studios and development teams.
Meanwhile, Christoffer Wilhelmsen, Co-founder and COO, said the company aims to unlock game creation for an estimated 250 million creators worldwide who currently produce digital content but lack accessible tools to build games.
Expanding the Creator Ecosystem
In partnership with Innovation City, SPARQ also announced plans to launch the SPARQ Creators Centre in Ras Al Khaimah, a dedicated AI-powered hub designed to attract global creators, developers, and engineers.
Paul Dawalibi, CEO of Innovation City, said SPARQ represents the type of transformative technology company the UAE seeks to attract and support as part of its ambition to become a global hub for AI, gaming, and creative technologies.
With beta access currently rolling out and a broader launch planned in the near future, SPARQ is focused on enabling millions of creators to enter the gaming industry through accessible AI-powered development tools, positioning itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence and the global creator economy.
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