Vatar, di company wey stand behind di viral browser game Lagos Life, don close $500,000 angel round. Di round close in one day.
Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola put money inside di startup through im fund, Resilience17. Oo Nwoye, Terra Industries, and di CEOs of Mono, Nathan Nwachuku and Abdulhamid Hassan, also join di round.
Di investment value di company at $10 million. Dat one na significant show of confidence from im investors.
Lagos Life na Vatar flagship game. Shalom Rayhamen, one Nigerian developer, build and launch am in less than one day with help from AI tools.
Di game release just barely one week ago, and e dey simulate life inside virtual Lagos. Players can find work, earn virtual naira, pay rent, and even ride public transport inside di game.
For first three days after launch, di game pack one million players. Since then, e don grow pass four million, according to updates from Rayhamen.
‘I grow up dey play The Sims and I always wonder how e go look if di characters live inside my city,’ Rayhamen, co-founder and CEO of Vatar Inc, talk. ‘Four million people don show us di answer.’
Rayhamen co-found di company with Owen Rayhamen and Anderson Oriahi. Di startup dey already generate revenue and don pull more than $170,000 in earned and contracted revenue since launch.
Lagos Life be di poster child for plenty games wey Nigerian developers launch in di last two weeks. Di games dey increasingly test wetin possible inside gaming industry wey limited investment and high startup costs don stifle.
By leveraging artificial intelligence, independent developers don dey able to spin up numerous games in a short period. With dis funding secured, Vatar go now look to build on Lagos Life early momentum and turn im viral success into sustainable gaming business.
