Gardens Interactive Secures $35M+ to Deepen Human Connection in an Era of Automation

The Series B funding round brings together an exceptional group of investors, including Lightspeed, Sequoia, Index, Accel, Innovation Endeavors, the Nintendo Family, the ZeniMax Family, and the Founders of Funplus and Slack.

Gardens Interactive believes the next great entertainment companies will be built around the unpredictability, emotional resonance, and lasting memories created by real people playing together in an evolving world.

THE VISION: EVERYTHING IS BETTER TOGETHER

Los Angeles, CA, October 7, 2026 — Today, Gardens Interactive announced they have secured $35M+ from an exceptional syndicate of investors, fueling the upcoming launch and live operations of their debut title, an unrevealed social roleplaying "strandbox" game. The studio confirmed that they are in the process of finalizing additional closings on a rolling basis, with the full round expected to be closed by end of month.

Lightspeed led the round and expanded the firm’s ownership in the studio. Zenith Capital, founded by James Altman (Executive Producer on the megahit Fallout TV series and former Publishing Director at Bethesda Softworks), joined a group of new investors alongside Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Accel, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Bayshore, and others. Prominent founders and operators in the round include Stewart Butterfield (co-founder and former CEO of Slack), Andy Zhong (founder and CEO of FunPlus), and Thomas Dimson (formerly of Instagram and co-creator of OpenAI’s Sora).

For returning investor Yamauchi No.10, the Nintendo Family Office, Gardens remains the first and only gaming startup investment in over 100 years of the company’s gaming legacy.

Moritz Baier-Lentz, who previously led the Series A investment for Lightspeed, has joined Gardens Interactive as an independent advisor, and former Tiktok COO V Pappas has joined Gardens’ board of directors, representing Lightspeed. Likewise, Mike Hong of Krafton will be joining Gardens’s board of directors, representing Krafton and replacing Maria Park, who is joining the leadership team in an independent advisory capacity. James Altman will work closely with the founders to help negotiate and manage the studio's publishing relationships and bring the world to life across other mediums.

  • “We embarked on this adventure to grow the future of social roleplay, to celebrate the unpredictable miracle that is another person. Social roleplay means empowering players to be the engines of one another’s adventures, to give them the tools to express themselves, connect and communicate – to invite them to forge lasting relationships, landmark memories, and to transform the world together. We’re proud to also unite this incredible group of investors. Just like the game itself, everything is better together.

    This funding gives us the room to ship a game of this scale properly, and to keep it alive and evolving for years to come. Our ambition is to grow Gardens into the global leader of prestige social entertainment, and we are deeply grateful for our partners – those who have been with us from the beginning, and those who are new to our adventure party – for believing in our vision and for recognizing social roleplay and player-driven worldbuilding as a massive and majorly underserved category.”

    -Stephen Bell, Co-Founder and CEO

THE THESIS: HUMAN CONNECTION IN A WORLD OF AUTOMATION

V Pappas, Operating Partner at Lightspeed and former COO of TikTok, on why tier-1 VCs and strategic investors are placing their chips on authentic human connection:

  • "As the world around us is getting faster by the day, people’s desire for genuine human connection is only growing. Shared moments between real people are getting more valuable. Gardens is a very particular kind of bet on that, and a hedge for this moment, against a world where automation is everywhere and genuine human experience is what becomes scarce.”

    — V Pappas, Operating Partner


THE GAME: A SOCIAL ROLEPLAYING “STRANDBOX”

As for what exactly a “strandbox” is, co-founder and creative director Chris Bell, who previously helped design Journey and Sky: Children of the Light, explains:

  • “Gardens is a game about the stories that emerge when players cross paths and experience chance encounters, set in a shapeshifting world full of myth, mystery and magic. And it doesn't fit the labels people usually reach for, so we half-jokingly threw one out and it stuck.

    A strandbox is a sandbox where what you do stays behind for whoever passes through next, where the consequences of your actions can be felt by those you may never meet, and where players can deepen their bonds in a multitude of ways.

    Gardens players explore an open and ever-changing world, the kind that pulls you toward the horizon the way The Legend of Zelda does. It’s a world of reverberating memory—you feel the effects of other players' actions whether they're standing next to you or passed by days ago. Kojima Productions' work on Death Stranding is a big influence there, as are the endless stories of GTA roleplay, the tension of crossing paths with strangers in Arc Raiders, and the emergent chaos of titles like Peak and Big Walk.

    We’ve designed Gardens from the ground up to allow player actions to have real impact on them, the world, the community, and the adventurers who follow in their footsteps.”

    — Chris Bell, Co-Founder and Creative Director

THE PROGRESS: WHAT THE PRE-ALPHA ALREADY SHOWS

Investors lauded Gardens’ combination of design and technical innovation in equal measure. At the foundation of the game is Petri, a proprietary world engine and matchmaker that seamlessly blends procedural generation and hand-authored content, developed in-house because no existing technology met the studio's requirements.

  • “Gardens required a virtually limitless world, but one that could realistically be built by a medium-sized team, and which could be expanded in modular fashion for years to come.

    We knew it needed to retain the spirit of adventure, rewarding curiosity and exploration without feeling algorithmic or hollow. And it needed to be deeply social, it needed to bring players together organically–whether potential companions who might share your motivations or rivals ready to stand in your way–in a way that remembers your actions, honors your intent and deepens your bonds.

    Petri means our world is procedural where procedural systems serve us, and hand-authored wherever the experience depends on it. The result is a world unlike any other, one that shapeshifts endlessly–impacted by divine influence, dynamic events and communal efforts.”

    — Lexie Dostal, Co-Founder and CTO


Zenith Capital founder James Altman spent time with a pre-alpha build before investing. For him, the draw was seeing the game's central idea already working in players' hands.

  • “Gardens is not your standard developer. They didn't set out to build a new game; they set out to build a new category. Plenty of studios pitch social gameplay, but Gardens is the first where I sat down with a build of the game, and emergent stories wrote themselves. Two strangers crossed paths, one of them made a choice, and the world was different for whoever came next.

    Gardens is something rare: an indie studio that will set a new standard for the rest of the industry. It’s one hell of an opportunity for a team like Gardens, and I want to help them get the game into as many hands as possible.”

    — James Altman, Chief Investment Officer

THE INVITATION: JOIN THE CLOSED PRE-ALPHA PLAYTESTS

While the game isn’t ready for a public reveal just yet, Gardens is opening applications to closed pre-alpha tests. In a blog post earlier this year, the team wrote:

  • "We're especially looking for playtesters who play games with comparable mechanics or social dynamics—games like Sea of Thieves, Arc Raiders, The Legend of Zelda, GTA Online—and players who interact with those games in different ways (PvP- vs PvE- vs. non-combat-focused players, for example). We're making a game that does a lot of familiar things in novel ways, so it's really important to have players get in there and tell us what's working and not working for them.”

That goes for “friendslop” regulars too: if Peak and Big Walk are in your rotation, the team wants to hear from you. Players who fit that description and can keep a secret can sign up for the closed pre-alpha here:


Gardens Interactive is a distributed games studio from developers of games like Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Sky: Children of the Light, Blaseball, Dustforce, Guild Wars 2, and more. Gardens is growing the future of social roleplay – bringing players together to forge lasting friendships and landmark memories through dynamic multiplayer experiences that shape and flourish the world and communities around them.

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