MixRift, a mixed reality game studio, today announced it’s secured a $1.6 million pre-seed investment round, something the team says will be used to develop more MR games.

The funding round was led by Outsized Ventures, Underline Ventures, and SOSV. According to CrunchBase data, MixRift received an undisclosed round from SOSV in May 2024.

Founded in 2023, the team is led by Bobby Voicu, David Pripas and Andrei Vaduva. Voicu, who is CEO, previously launched mobile games studio Mavenhut; Pripas is an official Meta AR Partner and the company’s CPO, and Vaduva is the company’s CTO.

Known for its indie XR titles Hell Horde (2024) on Quest and Fractured (2024) on both Quest and Apple Vision Pro, MixRift says it’s working to create the Angry Birds of mixed reality—something that’s easy to pick up but hard to put down.

“We’re at the very beginning of what mixed reality could do for gamers,” Voicu says. “We know there is a huge untapped market, and our founding team knows what it takes to create the games that hook those players in. This puts us in a unique position to capitalise on the opportunity.”

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MixRift says it will use the investment to continue its development and plans to release further titles later in 2024, noting that it’s focusing on sticky game mechanics over “specific titles” to best identify what resonates with audiences.

“We are committed to rapidly prototyping games, getting them into the market, and gathering real user feedback as quickly as possible,” Voicu says. “We use those insights to improve titles that connect with audiences and replace those that don’t. This investment gives us the support we need to take that approach and demonstrates experienced, knowledgeable backers’ buy-in to our philosophy.”

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    So twice as much as Flat2VR?

    • VRDeveloper

      This is funny, with all due respect, but Americans no longer have the notion of the game market they had until 2013-2014, I have the impression that America has lost the quality of the industry it had, the Japanese/Asian are coming with everything, America needs to wake up.

      If you gave 1 million dollars to some studio here in South America or Japan, man, you would see something much more serious than Angry birds. hilarious, I'm not saying this with evil in my heart, I'm just showing a fact and I wanted to know if you agree, since you're American.

      • VRDeveloper

        Complementing what I said, keep my words, this Angry birds project will not profit as expected, and then they will blame the VR market, saying that it is too small and that the public does not engage.

        • ViRGiN

          I don't expect success but with simple games like that – who knows. I would never predict gorilla tag could be as big as it is today.

      • ViRGiN

        If I’m American, then you’re African.

        The industry produces whatever they forecast will sell. And it’s not just gaming. It’s the same with movies. Not much originality, remakes, reboots, remasters.

        You don’t really see movies from South America or Japan really conquering anything.

        • VRDeveloper

          I thought you were American, Haha

          I understand what you said and I think that's the problem, maybe American investors have started to rely too much on social media data and statistics, these things don't work in the gaming world.

          About movies; I could say that Argentine cinema has been delivering much more really smart movies, if we compare it to what the Americans have been producing.

          And the gaming industry in South America just does not receive investment, but with the little they already receive, you can see that they try very hard and sometimes something very good comes out, even with zero investment, as was the case with MULLET MAD JACK, among others, in Asia I can mention the Black Myth. Just saying, those social media data analytics dont work well.

  • Nevets

    Boooring. Why not work on the Tomb Raider of VR.

  • NicoleJsd

    Expensive device for super nerds to be mixed with super accessible casual game. Good luck lmao, that’s like flushing money down the drain

  • Huh? Angry Birds already exists in vr though

    • philingreat

      They don't mean that they literally make Angry Birds, just a game as addicting and successful as Angry Birds

  • It's a lot of money for just a vague statement like this. I guess they showed the investors some prototypes

  • philingreat

    If they know so well what is needed to make a super successful game, why do their 2 released games have only 42 reviews combined?

    • ViRGiN

      It's all about spending investors money, not making it for them.
      Vail pulled it off perfectly. Will never be profitable, but they get to give themselves a nice salary.

  • g-man

    I know they didn’t mean it literally but I’d love an MR Angry Birds. Let me knock down blocks in my own room!