Large War Chest
With an incredible $910 million in funding over four rounds, Forte has the financial capabilities to bolster and popularize its economic technology for games that are secure, easy to use and fully compliant — and, in the process, build up the Metaverse to the massive potential many experts say it will reach.
With headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, Forte was founded in 2019 by Brett Seyler, Josh Williams, Kevin Chou, and Mahesh Vellanki.
Its end-to-end blockchain platform enables the emergence of community economics, a system where the interests of game developers and players are aligned, leading to healthier, sustainable game communities.
Forte
Comprising a team made up of longtime industry members (Unity, Riot Games, Electronic Arts, Sony, and Rockstar Games, among others), Forte is currently working with over 25 acclaimed game developers from across the globe to reimagine the economics of games.
Aware that digital property rights are the next frontier of gaming, Forte has taken responsibility here by taking the lead in empowering individuals or companies to launch their own NFT or game token.
Forte’s platform offers:
• Interoperable
Choose when and how to roll out tokens to mainnet blockchains. Maximize liquidity by interconnecting to multiple blockchains and exchanges
• Customizable
Forte’s embeddable, white-label wallet looks like your brand. Players can buy, sell, or trade virtual goods without ever leaving your game
• Compliant
Forte is the only platform licensed to mint tokens and NFTs. Safeguard your game with KYC, AML, IP protection, tax planning, and more
• Built to Scale
Start with NFTs. Introduce in-game tokens. Build more economies and marketplaces as you grow, and connect to L1/L2 blockchains
As blockchain gaming is at the heart of everything Forte does, it wants all game developers, big and small — whether they already have a AAA title with millions of players or are building a blockchain game from the ground up — to be successful in this new landscape.
This unselfish attitude to the industry which it is serving can only make Forte’s reputation stronger.
Forte’s first of four Co-Founder is Brett Seyler, currently responsible for Platform & Economic Design at the startup.
Seyler started his career in applied mathematics (finance) before falling in love with the games industry. Primarily an entrepreneur with operational roles focused on platform development and design, go-to-market strategies, and recruiting engineers, he was part of a small team that grew a bootstrapped venture called GarageGames to over 100 employees, selling a majority stake to IAC in 2007 (publicly reported at $50M+). He was part of Unity ($U) at a similarly early stage, working closely with the founders to craft and execute new growth initiatives and raise venture capital before exiting the company in 2012.
Today, he’s operationally focused on R&D in decentralized finance (DeFi) for Forte in application to games and similar applications outside of games via First Foundry, while also an active investor focusing on fintech, game technologies, distributed computing, blockchain, machine learning, and bioinformatics.
Kevin Chou is the founding CEO of Forte and the founder of SuperLayer, a new crypto venture studio.
Prior to SuperLayer, Kevin founded Rally, a Creator Economy crypto protocol. Rally is funded by a16z Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, 1confirmation, Kenetic Capital, Twitch founders, Cultural Leadership Fund, and several leading blockchain community members. Rally is a blockchain project for Creators and their fan communities to thrive together. In 2021, Rally reached a fully-diluted market cap of over $3 billion.
He turned over the CEO role to Josh Williams, another Co-Founder of the project. Chou currently serves as the Chairman of Gen.G, a new esports enterprise bridging Asia and North America. He was the founding CEO of Gen.G in 2017. Gen.G is the parent company of Seoul Dynasty in the Overwatch League, as well as the 2017 League of Legends world champions.
Previously, Chou was CEO and founder of Kabam, a top developer of mobile games. He led the company from business plan founding to over $400 million in annual revenue serving over 500 million players. Kabam developed leading partnerships with Marvel, Star Wars, Fast & Furious, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games. Kabam was profitable from 2012 until the sale of the company’s studios to Netmarble, 21st Century Fox, and GAEA, which in total generated nearly $1 billion in value.
Early in his career, Chou was a venture capitalist at the venture capital firm Canaan Partners investing in consumer internet and digital media.
He’s been honoured by Fortune in 40 under 40, CNN in Smartest People in Tech, and Business Insider’s Silicon Valley Top 100. In 2019, Kevin was honoured as UC Berkeley’s Alumnus of the Year.
Chou graduated magna cum laude from the UC Berkeley undergraduate Haas School of Business program. He serves on the Board of Trustees at UC Berkeley.
Mahesh Vellanki is another Co-Founder of Forte. Building open networks at the intersection of crypto, gaming and creators, he is a former investor at Redpoint Ventures, where he invested in early growth consumer internet companies.
Vellanki has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30 + LinkedIn Top Voices. He obtained a BS in Finance from the University of Maryland — Robert H. Smith School of Business.
The current CEO of Forte is Josh Williams, another Co-Founder. Williams has been a specialist in ML, real-time technologies and big data for nearly two decades.
He serves in board seats at several emerging technology companies in the mobile, marketing, biotech, and consumer sectors.
Before Forte, Williams served as CEO and CTO of GarageGames, which helped pioneer the industry’s transition to digitally distributed games.
After a collaborative future in gaming by realigning the economic relationship between players and developers, Forte will, without doubt, play an important role in the development of the Metaverse and Web3, bringing its own philosophy to the developing market as it breaks new ground in the space.
For more market insights, check out our latest Digital Twin news here.
