Minit Games Raises €1.7M for AI Gaming Feed

Germany's Minit Games Raises €1.7 Million to Power Its AI-Driven Short-Form Gaming Feed

The global gaming industry is witnessing a defining transformation, and Hamburg-based startup Minit Games is at the very center of it. The company has officially stepped out of stealth mode, announcing a €1.7 million pre-seed funding round that signals a bold new chapter in how people discover and interact with games. This AI funding milestone marks the beginning of a new era — one where mobile gaming is no longer tied to app store downloads and long loading times, but instead flows through an intelligent, personalized feed not unlike what TikTok or Instagram offer for video content. The investment, led by London-based LVP and Sony Innovation Fund, with participation from a group of experienced gaming industry angels, will be deployed to expand the Hamburg team and fast-track the platform's technical development ahead of an invite-only alpha launch.

The announcement has quickly attracted significant attention across the European startup ecosystem and global gaming industry alike. In a landscape where AI funding news is becoming a daily headline, Minit Games stands out not just because of who is backing it, but because of the fundamental problem it is setting out to solve. Gaming, unlike music, video, or social media, has historically been tied to stores. You search, you download, you wait — and often, you abandon the whole process. Minit Games is positioning itself as the platform that removes every single one of those steps.

The Problem Minit Games Is Solving

To truly understand why this AI funding round is generating so much excitement, one must first understand the structural friction that has long plagued game discovery. Every other major media format — short videos, music playlists, news stories, podcasts — has made the move to algorithmic, frictionless feeds. Scroll and consume, in real time, without any barriers. Gaming, however, has remained the stubborn exception. Despite being one of the most lucrative entertainment industries in the world, digital game distribution is still dominated by storefronts that require searching, clicking, downloading, and often paying before you ever experience a single second of gameplay. This friction disproportionately affects smaller, independent developers who cannot afford the marketing budgets needed to compete for visibility in crowded digital marketplaces. The result is a deeply unequal ecosystem where the top one percent of publishers capture more than ninety percent of the revenue, while independent creators remain virtually invisible.

Minit Games co-founder Ole Schaper captured this problem powerfully: "Players live in algorithmic feeds, but games are still trapped in stores. We're building a destination where short-form games are as easy to discover and engage with as any other modern media format. We aren't just showing clips; we are delivering the full, interactive experience immediately." That last point is critical. Minit is not a gaming trailer platform or a video previews app. It is a fully interactive experience that begins the moment a user encounters a game in their feed — no download, no wait, no friction.

The platform is being built around HTML5 games, which are inherently browser-compatible and can be launched instantly on virtually any device. These bite-sized titles, referred to internally as "Minits," are designed to be played in the short windows of downtime that modern users experience throughout the day — while waiting for a bus, during a coffee break, or in the idle minutes between meetings. This focus on micro-sessions and instant gratification aligns precisely with how today's audiences consume all other types of digital content, making Minit Games a natural evolution for the gaming category.

How the AI-Powered Discovery Engine Works

At the core of Minit Games' platform is a sophisticated AI-driven recommendation engine that draws direct inspiration from the algorithmic systems powering TikTok and Instagram Reels. Rather than relying on passive browsing or keyword-based searches, Minit's engine actively learns from user engagement signals — including what games are played, how long sessions last, what gets swiped away, and what gets replayed — to build an increasingly personalized feed for every individual user. This is precisely the kind of AI funding use case that excites investors and industry watchers: not just automation for the sake of efficiency, but a transformative application of machine intelligence that creates an entirely new product experience.

The recommendation engine surfaces titles based on behavioral data rather than marketing spend, which fundamentally levels the playing field for game developers. A small independent creator who builds a genuinely compelling sixty-second game has the same algorithmic opportunity for discovery as a game produced by a large studio. This democratization of visibility is one of the most compelling aspects of Minit's model. Developers who use AI-assisted creation tools or HTML5-compatible game engines can publish their titles directly into the feed, bypassing the gatekeeping mechanics that define traditional storefronts.

The platform will be accessible across multiple channels at launch. Users will be able to access Minit through dedicated iOS and Android applications, through the web, and through embedded play integrations within messaging platforms such as Discord and Telegram. This multi-channel approach reflects a broader strategic intent: Minit Games does not want to be just an app, but a layer of gaming infrastructure woven into the everyday digital environments where its users already spend their time. From an AI funding news standpoint, this kind of cross-platform ambition backed by credible investors signals that Minit is thinking well beyond the immediate product.

The Investors and the People Behind Minit Games

The composition of Minit Games' investor group is itself a strong indicator of the startup's credibility and long-term potential. The round was co-led by LVP, a London-based venture capital firm with a deep and successful track record in the gaming sector, having backed global names including Supercell, Unity, and Klang Games. Alongside LVP, Sony Innovation Fund — the strategic investment arm of the Sony Group — has co-led the round, making a direct bet on the future of game distribution and AI-powered discovery. This is not Sony merely dabbling in startup investments; Sony Innovation Fund has been increasingly active in identifying and backing early-stage companies that could reshape the entertainment landscape at a foundational level.

Antonio Avitabile, Managing Director at Sony Ventures EMEA, articulated the rationale behind the investment clearly: "The shift towards feed-native content with instant access is a global trend that has now finally reached its turning point in gaming. Minit Games' approach with an AI-driven discovery engine offers a compelling solution for an audience that expects immediacy." His words reflect a broader conviction that the behavioral patterns shaped by TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels are not unique to video content — they represent a fundamental shift in how all digital media, including games, will be consumed going forward.

Complementing the institutional investors, the round also features participation from three highly respected gaming industry angels: Stefan Klemm, known for his work with Goodgame Studios and Bigpoint; Timo Soininen, the founder and former CEO of Small Giant Games; and Klaas Kersting, a veteran of Gameforge, Flaregames, and Phoenix Games. The collective experience these individuals bring spans the full spectrum of mobile and browser gaming — from free-to-play monetization strategies to community management and platform distribution. Their involvement is more than financial; it represents a deep reservoir of strategic guidance that Minit Games can draw on as it navigates its go-to-market phase.

The company itself was founded by serial entrepreneurs Mark Buchholz and Ole Schaper, who have a proven track record in the gaming space. The duo previously co-founded mobile gaming studio Sviper, which they successfully sold to The Sandbox — the blockchain-based gaming metaverse — just three years ago. This exit history adds significant credibility to their current venture. Repeat founders with domain expertise and prior successful exits consistently attract higher-quality investors and more favorable terms, which is partly why Minit Games was able to assemble such a strong pre-seed syndicate.

What This Means for the Future of Gaming and AI

Minit Games' emergence from stealth and its successful AI funding round arrive at a particularly significant moment in the evolution of both gaming and artificial intelligence. The convergence of these two fields is accelerating rapidly, with AI tools now enabling creators to design, develop, and iterate on playable experiences in a fraction of the time it previously required. What once took a team of developers months to build can now, with the right AI-assisted workflows, be created by a single person in days or even hours. The implication is a massive expansion in the volume and diversity of game content — a content explosion, if you will, that mirrors what happened to video content when smartphones and social media lowered the barrier to creation.

However, content abundance creates its own problem: discoverability. If thousands of new short-form games are being created every week by independent developers worldwide, how does any single one of them find its audience? This is precisely the gap that Minit Games' AI-powered feed is designed to fill. By building a discovery infrastructure that matches games to players through intelligent algorithms rather than paid promotion, Minit creates value for both sides of the marketplace simultaneously — developers gain organic reach, and players gain a richer, more personalized gaming experience.

From a broader investment perspective, this AI funding news fits squarely within a larger trend of AI funding flowing into gaming infrastructure and platform businesses across Europe and globally. Investors are increasingly recognizing that the next major shift in gaming will not come from a new game franchise or a new console generation, but from a fundamental rethinking of how games are distributed and discovered. Minit Games is making a clear bet that this shift looks like a social feed powered by real-time AI recommendations, and with LVP and Sony behind them, they have both the capital and the credibility to pursue that vision at scale.

The upcoming invite-only alpha launch represents the critical first public test of that vision. Early feedback from creators and players during the alpha phase will inform both the product roadmap and the company's broader growth strategy. For the gaming industry, for AI technology investors, and for independent game developers worldwide, Minit Games is a startup worth watching closely. Its approach is original, its backers are industry-proven, and its timing — as AI funding across all sectors reaches new heights — could not be better calibrated.