WarDucks, the Dublin-based augmented reality game development studio, has announced a €3.3 million funding round.

The lead investor in the round is the EQT Ventures fund, with participation from Suir Valley Ventures and other investors.

The company said the funding will be used to drive the development of WarDucks’ new location-based AR game and expand the company’s development team.

CEO Nikki Lannen (pictured), formerly a senior member of Facebook’s gaming team, founded the company in 2013 with the aim of creating world-class content for mobile, AR and VR platforms.

“There’s a huge opportunity in AR location-based mobile gaming, which combines the local appeal of real world maps with engaging gameplay,” said Lannen.

In Association with

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with EQT Ventures as we race towards the launch of of our location-based AR game, as the team’s extensive mobile gaming experience will be invaluable on the next phase of our journey.

“The fact that we’ve also had so many top gaming executives from around the world join our team is testament to the talent and vision of the team we’ve currently got in place.”

The team company recently hired John Romero as a creative consultant. Romero is co-founder of the Romero Games studio, which is best known for his work on Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM II and Quake.

WarDucks has also hired Doug Kaufman, the game designer behind Civilization II and Frontierville, as its lead game designer. Kaufman will be joined by lead narrative designer Lawrence Schick, who was previously at ZeniMax where he was Loremaster on the Elder Scrolls Online. Schick worked with Gary Gygax on Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s and with Sid Meier at MicroProse in the 1980s.

Lars Jörnow, partner at EQT Ventures, stated: “WarDucks is a strong, proven games studio with an impressive team of passionate game experts ready to take on this rapidly growing genre of mobile gaming. We believe that WarDucks’ next title will engage players all over the world and become a popular franchise.”

Jörnow said that EQT Ventures came across WarDucks through Motherbrain, its AI platform that uncovers promising startups by monitoring thousands of data signals and making proactive contact.

In December 2018, EQT Ventures had its first exit when Small Giant Games, a Finnish mobile gaming studio, was acquired by Zynga in a deal worth $700m.

Prior to founding EQT Ventures, Jörnow was at King Digital for six years where he set up the mobile games team that launched Candy Crush Saga in 2012.