Ravensburger Announces Investment and Partnership with Gamefound

This announcement — which is summarized in the subject line of this post — wins my "most unexpected" prize of the month because as far as I know Ravensburger has not been involved in crowdfunding at all.

And yet here we are, with Ravensburger getting involved with crowdfunding. Here's the full text of the press release:

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Today, global toy and game company Ravensburger AG announces an investment and partnership with Gamefound — the crowdfunding platform dedicated to board games.

Update, Feb. 10: Let me interrupt this press release to note that the German press release for this announcement specifies that Ravensburger is investing €4 million in Gamefound. This detail is absent from the English press release, to which I now return:

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By board gamers, for board gamers, Gamefound is designed for the tabletop community and provides creators with resources and dedicated tools and solutions to help fully realize their board game ideas. The crowdfunding platform was soft launched as a spin-off from board game publisher Awaken Realms in 2021 and has shown early success, generating over $22 million USD in total funding for all hosted campaigns. Ravensburger will partner with Awaken Realms and support Gamefound as an investor and strategic partner to fully realize its potential in the games space.

"Crowdfunding can be an amazing tool for creating amazing Board Games and partnering with a respected industry leader like Ravensburger will help us create the best environment for backers and creators," said Marcin Świerkot, CEO of Gamefound and Awaken Realms. "This investment will enable the Gamefound team to quickly grow and develop new functions bringing the platform to the next level. We are extremely excited to start working with our community on the future of crowdfunding."

Ravensburger, who comes on-board as a trusted strategic partner and investor, will lend industry expertise to Gamefound's growing community and play a role in continuing to develop the platform's tools and offerings. Gamefound is the first investment from Ravensburger's recently announced "Next Ventures" program, which aims to fund innovation projects and start-ups, which have a direct link to Ravensburger core business segments including games, toys and puzzles.

"Ravensburger evaluates over 1,000 game ideas a year. We can ultimately publish only a handful of these games on our own, but hundreds more are concepts we know board game fans would really love," said Filip Francke, Ravensburger Global Head of Games. "Gamefound makes it easier for all creators to produce the games of their dreams and we're excited to support a platform that will help deliver even more game experiences to tabletop fans around the world."

Gamefound started as a spin-off subsidiary of Awaken Realms, one of the biggest board game publishers in the crowdfunding space with hits like Nemesis, Tainted Grail or ISS Vanguard. The platform offers more than the ability to raise money. It provides useful tools to help creators both manage their campaigns and deliver the final games to their backers. Boardgame designers are already finding success on Gamefound, with recent campaign successes including ISS Vanguard (almost $5 million USD in funding), Too Many Bones: Unbreakable ($3.4 million USD in funding) and Robinson Crusoe Collector's Edition (over $2.6 million USD in funding.)

Gamefound is entering the global board game market at a great time, as the industry has seen tremendous growth over the last decade. In the last few years, board game leaders such as Ravensburger had been seeing double digit growth in their business. In 2020, driven by a surge of interest in the category throughout the pandemic, that growth accelerated to over 50% in the U.S. alone. Known for offering quality gameplay experiences to a wide audience, Ravensburger looks to continue growing consumer interest in board games through their involvement with Gamefound.

In early February 2022, in an announcement that would have come during Spielwarenmesse should that fair have taken place, Ravensburger gave the following statement about its finances and well-being:

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After record growth of more than 20% in the previous year, the Ravensburger Group again increased sales slightly in 2021 by some 1% to EUR 636 million. The company achieved this despite the fact that the previous growth had already pushed it almost to its capacity limits, and even though it supplied fewer goods due to the reorganization of logistics in the U.S. and global transport bottlenecks. In response to these factors, the Group had already initiated high investment as from 2020: more than EUR 100 million, above all for increasing manufacturing capacities as well as for new jobs and workplaces. Other targets of investment are expansion abroad, innovation partnerships, and sustainability within the company.

My understanding is that Ravensburger has its own production facilities, but as noted above, the company is pretty much maxed out at this time, selling pretty much all that it produces, which leaves it sitting on more cash than it can use since it literally cannot produce more until it increases capacity. I'm generalizing here, but from talking with other publishers I know that production is still strained in many locations thanks to shortages of raw materials and huge orders thanks to continued good sales.

And what does a company do when it's flush with cash? Invest it in other businesses to broaden its future revenue streams. Here's how Ravensburger describes its "Next Ventures" program:

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We seek to work with founders and teams who are creating exciting and innovative new experiences to support playful development and to further our mission: Encourage discovery of what really matters.

How do we work?

We see ourselves as a "business building investor" bringing to work a combination of venture-capital-style investment and relevant operational support and cooperation. This means we invest more than money and seek to create a concrete operational connection from the outset that leverages our network, know-how and resources to the benefit of the new venture. It also means that we only invest in spaces where we have relevant expertise and can contribute something of value. The basis is always a strong conviction in a mutually beneficial long-term partnership.

Where do we invest?

• Products and services in areas that we love and understand: toys, games, children's and youth books, family edutainment and early childhood education, as well as closely related services and content.
• Physical, digital and hybrid products and business models.
• Mainly in Europe and North America but open to selectively consider other locations if there is a really good fit.
• Typically in pre-seed, seed or Series-A investment stages.