Israeli studio Spring Games raises $7M from Playtika

Israeli startup Spring Games has raised $7 million in a seed round funding from Playtika to develop NFT-powered games on the blockchain.

The first game that Spring Games is working on is MaxiBoom. The esports game offers expensive prizes to players in skill-based tournaments that run 24 hours a day.

The company plans to convert MaxiBoom into an NFT-powered play-to-earn game on blockchain and develop new games on blockchain infrastructure. Since NFTs have data stored on blockchain, which can be sold and traded, gamers will eventually be able to earn money by grinding and ‘’mining’’ the company’s cryptocurrency, and by trading their owned NFTs, the company said.

Spring Games plans to create play-to-earn games, where players can earn rewards and own their virtual goods and resell them if they like.

Platika’s is Israel’s big publicly traded mobile game publisher, and this move is its first dalliance with NFTs.

According to Idan Amir, Spring Games will reach the market quickly and will issue its independent currency by mid-2022.

MaxiBoom is free to play MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game that test the gamer’s battle skills. Players can fight solo or fight alongside teammates. The game combines various weaponry and multiple arenas. The more rivals the player takes down, the more Maxi-Coins he or she earns.

Spring Games was founded in early 2020 by CEO Idan Amir; CTO Lital Natan, a senior technologist from the games industry; CPO Dror Hollinger, who has 20 years’ experience in the industry; and CFO Dana Amir. Idan Amir is a serial entrepreneur who took part in establishing several startups, including cyber company Versafe Ltd., which was sold to F5 Networks for $95 million. Amir invested $1.5 million in Spring Games as a pre-seed investment.

“We’ll launch a marketplace where players will be able to buy NFT characters of the game,” Amir said in a statement. “The first game will be based on MaxiBoom, with changes that will enable players to earn crypto and ultimately real money based on their skill and time they play the game.”

Eric Rapps, Playtika chief strategy officer, said in a statement, “We are proud to support Spring Games and the next wave of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Israeli gaming industry in general and in blockchain in particular. Idan, Lital, Dana, and Dror are a winning team. I am convinced that Spring Games will benefit from Playtika’s knowledge and experience in game management and bring to this new market the highest quality product.”

The company has 15 employees. It previous raised money from Amir. In an email to GamesBeat, Amir said, “We are looking at advanced blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana. They both offer an impressive technological layout and a great potential to serve our purpose. It’s a tricky play of pros and cons,  choosing a certain blockchain and surrounding solutions will have a huge impact on our players’ experience and we do not take that decision lightly. We certainly intend to utilize the power of smart contracts to integrate our game currencies and playable assets. Specifications are still considered and how we’ll do it depends a lot on our final decision.”

Spring Games had a connection with Playtika executives, sharing key performance indicators (KPIs) and updates about the company’s evolution. That helped establish a connection between the companies.

“While we shared our intentions to shift into blockchain/NFT last October, Playtika showed interest and the negotiations led into this deal,” Amir said.

As for the inspiration, Amir said, “As Spring Games first game was so close to the play-to-earn concept (with real prizes), it was a natural transition for the company to shift into blockchain and NFTs and natural for Playtika to back this transition.”