$52.5M on user-generated mods: Overwolf raises major round

UGC (User-generated content) is one of the most powerful current marketing tools. We recently talked about how it works and what its benefits are for the brand and the company.

It is working with UGC that underpins the startup Overwolf, which two days ago announced a $52.5M in Series C financing. The company is known for its platform for gaming fans, which allows you to create your own modifications and additional tools for all types of PC games.

The series is jointly led by Insight Partners and Griffin Gaming Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in gaming content. Other investors in the round include Ubisoft, Warner Music Group, Meg Whitman and Gen.G co-founder Kevin Chow. The overall valuation of the project has not been disclosed.

The raised round once again highlights how interest in UGC is growing in the gaming industry. Now, the platform has around 30 000 authors, 90 000 mods and add-ons and 18M monthly users across thousands of games, including Fortnite, World of Warcraft and Minecraft. Management says Overwolf’s revenue has grown by 300% in the last year thanks to a surge in gaming activity caused by the pandemic.

While the platform is currently focused entirely on PC games, there are plans to expand to other platforms including Mac, console and mobile games next year.

Along with the round, Overwolf announced the launch of CurseForge Core, a product that can be integrated directly into the game itself to make it easier for enthusiastic authors and developers to create UGC for it. CurseForge Core is essentially the next iteration of CurseForge, the modding platform that Overwolf acquired from Amazon Twitch last year for an undisclosed sum.

“We are at an important inflection point for user-generated content, and the responsibility for significant growth in the gaming industry lies with ‘in-game creators’, a term we have coined to classify this new generation of game app creators and mod authors. The more content and customisation options a game has, the more likely the player will continue to be exposed to its content, and thus extend the life of the game and bring more benefits to developers and publishers” Uri Marchand, CEO and co-founder of Overwolf, comments on the current situation with the game — UGC market.