Industrial Technology and Witchcraft casts €1.68 million spell on investors

Berlin-based Industrial Technology and Witchcraft has raised €1.68 million in a seed investment round. The games studio aims to produce new voxel and pixel-based games with ‘mesmerising graphics’ and ‘epic soundtracks’, and based on the requirement drive currently underway at the studio’s website, will dedicate a portion of the funding to this campaign. 

Ok, let’s dive in here, shall we? While the company name is clearly taking a page from George Lucas’ playbook, (or is it homage?), details around just exactly what the new gaming studio is aiming to achieve are less than scant (let’s call it ‘lost in translation’?), and a comms person is clearly in need (alarm bells start sounding with the words 'mesmerising' and 'epic' get involved), there are two (arguably three) factors playing in Industrial Technology and Witchcraft’s favour: the zeitgeist, the approach, and the co-founder.

80's Retro Revival

One peek at Industrial Technology and Witchcraft’s artwork, and all fingers would point to jumping abort the Ready Player One/PortalOne/neo-80’s retro revival gaming theme.

Fair enough. PortalOne has brought home north of $70 million, and Tiger Global is on board. +1

Next-gen Voxels?

Voxels. Without going too deep into this, Minecraft is a video game that uses voxel technology. The name stems from an amalgamation of pixels (picture element), whereas the vo is used to represent a volume measurement. Sure, Minecraft is by no means the most mind-blowing graphics presentation by far, but neither was anything that could run on the Atari 2600, and yet … +1

Serial Cereal

And now for the coup de grace: Thilo Hardt. If you’re not familiar with Thilo, if your eyesight is anything less than perfect, you’ve probably heard of one of his former ventures, Mister Spex. +1

Again, given that the details around Industrial Technology and Witchcraft remain scarce, it’s clearly Hardt’s track record of building successful companies that brought High-Tech Gründerfonds, DN Capital, and BLN Capital, the single family office of Daniel Stammler, Oliver Löffler and Janosch Sadowski, the founders of Kolibri Games to the table.