Consumers globally spent more than $201 billion on gaming last year according to data from Newzoo , an all-time high, yet this remains an industry in crisis. Surging game budgets and rising hardware costs are destroying bottom lines; market saturation, with more than 200,000 games released digitally each year, make it difficult even for big-name gaming studios to get consumers’ attentions.

Amid this turmoil, the founders of Liquidnitro Games , saw an opportunity. The Indian-based company works as a partner to games publishers, rather than developing its own intellectual property, helping them get their ideas to market more quickly and efficiently, and in a form more likely to sell.

Launched in 2024 by founders who previously worked in executive roles at Electronic Arts, Liquidnitro has grown rapidly, with headcount now standing at around 140. The business has recently completed a $19.1 million Series A funding round and is today announcing the appointment of Cedrick Collomb as chief technology officer. The Frenchman is a former CTO of Tencent Games Global and EA Mobile.

Liquidnitro is focused on three areas in particular, supporting gaming companies with getting new games off the ground from scratch, with building live gaming services, and with expansion into new high-growth markets such as Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. The start-up has spent much of the past two years building its own technology platform, powered by artificial intelligence, to help its partners build better games more quickly.

“The market is flooded with AI tools promising cheap, automated game production and business intelligence,” says Sandeep Kowdley, co-founder and CEO of Liquidnitro. “We’re betting on the opposite thesis: AI should empower development teams to reach further creatively, sharpen product decisions and improve execution, all without stripping out the emotional depth that makes players care.”

FEATURED | Frase By Forbes ™

Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase

The company is tight-lipped about financial metrics to date, but Kowdley says it is already working with five out of the top 10 gaming publishers globally. “We’re not a staff augmentation firm looking for projects where we can supply a few engineers,” he explains. “We have a preference for the biggest games and we are focused on the business intent of large publishers – how to deliver the strategic outcomes they’re striving for.”

Liquidnitro sees the hiring of Collomb as something of a coup in this regard, given the potential to leverage his track record at major publishers in order to establish more high-profile relationships with well-known studios. “He will play a pivotal role in making sure our technology helps teams build better games, unlock greater creativity, and deliver player experiences that resonate," Kowdley adds.

For his part, Collomb points to his experience within game publishers of facing many of the problems that Liquidnitro promises to confront. “Some of the industry’s problems are endemic, from games running late to finding the funding,” he says. “We think Liquidnitro has a platform that can solve that.”

Investors have also backed the business to help gaming publishers move through the gloom. The Series A round, led by Northpoint Capital, with participation from existing backer Nexus Venture Partners, takes the total amount of money raised by the company to just over $24 million.

Still, despite its early successes, Liquidnitro faces tough challenges in an industry that seems stuck in retrenchment. Layoffs in the gaming industry have seen almost 60,000 roles cut worldwide since 2022; multiple studios and publishers have shut up shop for good.

However, Kowdley is not deterred, arguing this is exactly the environment where studios need specialist partners that can increase their chances of success.

“The companies that define the future of this industry will be powered by exceptional technology and platforms,” he adds. “The goal is to make game production, live services and global expansion more predictable and profitable at scale, while giving teams more latitude to do ambitious creative work."