Yahaha Studios, Finnish platform for building games, raises $50M to launch no-code metaverse

Yahaha Studios, a Finland-based platform for building no-code, immersive games, has raised $50 million in three rounds ahead of its launch this year, TechCrunch reports.

• Yahaha Studios is a platform that provides both developers and players the ability to build, publish, host, and operate 3D interactive multiplayer games. It was founded in 2020 by veterans from Unity, Microsoft, and EA — CEO Chris Zhu, COO Pengfei Zhang, and CTO Hao Min.
• The $50 million that it has raised is not new funding: it was pulled together in six months, across three rounds, all in 2020, TechCrunch emphasizes.
• The leading investors of those rounds are 5Y Capital, HillHouse, and Coatue in respective order. Other backers include ZhenFund, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, BiliBili and Xiaomi.
• The funding values Yahaha in the range of $300 million to $500 million.
• Officially, Yahaha Studios is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. It also has an R&D office based in Shanghai and business development in South Korea.
• The startup has yet to launch a commercial product, but it already has a small community of early users — about 220 people.
• Its founders’ goal is to develop a no-code “metaverse for games,” where people can cooperate to build and play games combining virtual and real-world elements. So the proceeds will be spent to the launch the alpha version in the second quarter of this year.