High-profile entertainment-industry investors Eric Garland and Evan Richter have just announced a $75 million fund for media, entertainment, and games, with Epic Games as one of the select companies Smash Ventures has chosen to invest in. In an interview with GamesBeat, the duo has explained what's so different about Epic Games, and why they're choosing to invest in it.
The pair's relationship with Epic Games goes back six or seven years when both were working in venture investments for Disney. A conversation with Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull led to Garland and Richter looking for companies that developed game engines, which led them to Epic. "We put out just a handful of cold calls," Garland said. "One of them was a totally cold email. I think we guessed Tim Sweeney’s email address. He responded."
The pair initially invested in Epic on Disney's behalf, but later reconnected with Sweeney while putting their own company Smash Ventures together. "We connected with Tim, caught up, and he said, 'I'm putting a round together. Would you like to participate?' It was a privilege to get to do that," Richter explained. "That was our first investment, and there have been many since then, but it started all at that time."
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