Journey and Sky Veterans' Gardens Interactive Raises $35M in Series B

Gardens Interactive, the studio founded by veterans of Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Sky: Children of the Light, has raised more than $35 million in a Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round pushes total funding to more than $70 million, and the studio is using it to finish its debut game, currently called Project Gardens.

Who put money in

Beyond Lightspeed, the round includes Zenith Capital, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Accel, Innovation Endeavours, and Bayshore. Several individual investors also took part: Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and former CEO of Slack; Andy Zhong, founder and CEO of FunPlus; and Thomas Dimson, co-creator of OpenAI's Sora.

The deal comes with some board changes. Moritz Baier-Lentz, head of gaming and interactive media at Lightspeed, joins Gardens Interactive as an independent advisor. Former TikTok COO V Pappas will serve as Lightspeed's representative on the board of directors.

Krafton, the South Korean publisher and developer, is also reshuffling its seat. Mike Hong, director of investments and business analysis at Krafton, takes its board position. He succeeds Maria Park, Krafton's head of corporate development, who moves to Gardens Interactive's leadership team as an independent advisor.

What Project Gardens is

Project Gardens is a multiplayer game that the studio describes as a shared fantasy adventure with "social roleplay elements." Details on platforms, release timing, and gameplay structure have not been shared.

CEO Stephen Bell explained what the studio means by social roleplay: "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."

The pedigree matters here. Journey and Sky are both known for wordless or lightly worded multiplayer, where strangers form bonds through simple tools rather than chat. Gardens appears to be aiming at a more expansive version of that idea, with players shaping one another's stories.

The pitch to investors

Bell said the money is meant to cover both launch and the long haul. "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," he said. "Our ambition is to grow Gardens into the global leader of prestige social entertainment."

He also thanked backers old and new for "recognising social roleplay and player-driven worldbuilding as a massive and majorly underserved category."

The size of the round stands out in a cautious funding climate for games. A roster that includes Sequoia, Index, and Accel suggests investors see room for a live, socially driven fantasy game, particularly one built by a team with a track record of making multiplayer feel personal.