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Cult of the North funding, valuation and investors
Stockholm studio (formerly Seidr) building We Will Be Gods — shut down July 2025.
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Seed
~106M SEK · January 2023
Latest known valuation
Not publicly disclosed
Total disclosed equity funding
Not publicly disclosed
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
shutdown
seed · Stockholm, Sweden
Investors in latest funding
Lead: Andreessen Horowitz
Overview
Cult of the North (formerly Seidr) was a Stockholm game studio co-founded in 2022 by Adam Schaub and Marcus Jacobs, veterans of EA, King, and Embark Studios. The studio raised approximately 106M SEK in a January 2023 seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz's games fund to build We Will Be Gods (formerly Project Gundalf), a large-scale multiplayer strategy game on a proprietary engine. Despite an experienced team and alpha community tests, the studio announced shutdown in July 2025 when funding was exhausted — roughly 31 staff impacted and no commercial launch.
Why Cult of the North is interesting
EA/King veterans raised ~106M SEK a16z seed for a custom-engine midcore MMO, shelved months before launch when funding ran out — rare public shutdown post mega-seed.
Product & use cases
We Will Be Gods — large-scale multiplayer strategy war game with kingdom politics and custom engine; shelved at alpha stage before July 2025 shutdown.
- Large-scale multiplayer strategy (unshipped)
- Proprietary game engine development (discarded at shutdown)
- Community alpha playtests before closure
Key facts
- Seed (Jan 2023): ~106M SEK led by a16z; company valued at ~360M SEK (Breakit, a16z announcement)
- Formerly Seidr; rebranded Cult of the North; flagship title We Will Be Gods
- Shutdown announced July 2, 2025; ~31 staff impacted (GameBaba Universe, DI)
- 2023 loss of 21M SEK on 5.4M SEK revenue per Swedish filings cited in Breakit
Funding history (newest first)
Seed
2023-01 ~106M SEKInvestors in our directory
Funds linked from Cult of the North's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Competitive landscape
Edge: Veteran EA/King leadership and ~106M SEK a16z seed — undermined by burn rate and inability to secure follow-on funding for multi-year MMO production.
Game studio venture funding does not guarantee ship or retention. Cult of the North's shutdown despite ~106M SEK seed highlights duration mismatch between VC timelines and game production realities.
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Embark Studios adjacent
Swedish studio with live-service expertise — founders' prior employer; better capital efficiency on shipped titles.
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Midcore mobile studios (King, Supercell) direct
Competed for talent and player attention in hit-driven games economics — most rely on faster iteration cycles than custom-engine MMOs.
Notable stories
- CEO Adam Schaub wrote 'The funding's gone. The studio is dying. But the dream? Still breathing fire' when announcing shutdown — game shelved months before planned launch (GameBaba Universe, Jul 2025).
- a16z invested when the studio was still named Seidr, praising founders' ability to build successful studios from scratch (Breakit, Jan 2023).
Industries
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Cult of the North's financing or category context.
FAQs about Cult of the North
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