SHRAPNEL

SHRAPNEL

AAA shooter with blockchain-based digital ownership

Overview

Shrapnel builds a AAA-grade shooter game that is the first to run on blockchain technology. It creates a digital economy inside the game where players own, trade, and sell in-game assets securely and transparently using blockchain, giving true ownership of digital items. The game is designed to appeal to players who want high-quality, immersive experiences and are open to new tech. What sets Shrapnel apart is its experienced, high-profile team with backgrounds on HALO, Call of Duty, and Westworld, which supports delivering a polished, console-ready experience and a scalable in-game economy. The company's goal is to combine competitive gameplay with a digital asset ecosystem, attracting a dedicated player base while generating revenue from game sales, in-game purchases, and trading fees, potentially expanding through partnerships and sponsorships.

Significant Headcount Growth

About SHRAPNEL

Simplify's Rating
Why SHRAPNEL is rated
C
Rated C on Competitive Edge
Rated C on Growth Potential
Rated C on Differentiation

Industries

Consumer Software

Crypto & Web3

Entertainment

Gaming

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$57M

Headquarters

Seattle, Washington

Founded

2021

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Steam lists March 12, 2026 Early Access and free-to-play, widening top-of-funnel reach.
  • Shrapnel.com says July 28, 2026 marketplace, Printer, and Recycle Depot remain active.
  • A February 2026 report said Neon Machine raised $19.5 million for global launch execution.

What critics are saying

  • Blockworks reported March 2025 layoffs, unpaid debts, and nearly all staff cut.
  • The 2023 co-founder lawsuit settled February 14, 2025, still drained cash and management focus.
  • If Steam Early Access fails to retain players, Shrapnel becomes another dead Web3 shooter.

What makes SHRAPNEL unique

  • Neon Machine launched Steam Early Access March 12, 2026, with free-to-play access.
  • Shrapnel combines extraction FPS gameplay with marketplace trading and cosmetic crafting.
  • The game ties progression, Operators, and items to a blockchain economy on Avalanche.

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Funding

Total Funding

$57M

Above

Industry Average

Funded Over

4 Rounds

Late VC funding comparison data is currently unavailable. We're working to provide this information soon!
Late VC Funding Comparison
Coming Soon

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

7%

2 year growth

-3%
Law360
Mar 25th, 2026
Game developer seeks to toss suit over NFT delay.

Game developer seeks to toss suit over NFT delay. By Sydney Price ( March 24, 2026, 9:51 PM EDT) - Game development studio Neon Machine Inc. urged a New York federal court to dismiss a suit brought by an investment fund specializing in virtual "real estate" over the company's alleged failure to timely deliver an unregistered NFT associated with an unreleased game, arguing the delays in developing the game do not warrant a securities fraud suit... Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as * Daily newsletters * Expert analysis * Mobile app * Advanced search * Judge information * Real-time alerts * 450K+ searchable archived articles Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. Attached documents. Related sections. Case information. Case title. Case number. Court. Nature of suit. Judge. Date filed. Law firms. Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2025, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and significant transaction work that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.

Makko
Mar 20th, 2026
The team behind Makko AI: Amazon, PAX, and a different vision for Game Development.

The team behind Makko AI: Amazon, PAX, and a different vision for Game Development. Most game development tools are built by engineers for engineers. The assumption baked into their design is that the person using them already knows how to code, already understands engine architecture, and just needs better tooling to move faster. Makko was built on a different assumption: that the person with the best game idea in the room is not always the person who can ship it. That belief shapes everything about how Makko works, what it prioritizes, and who built it. This week, GeekWire featured Makko in its Startup Radar series, spotlighting the founding team and the platform's early traction. More than 3,000 people joined the beta before it wrapped, and the number has since grown to nearly 4,000. That is not a vanity number. It is an early signal that the problem Makko is solving is real and that people are actively looking for a way through it. The founders and where they come from. Makko was founded in 2025 by three people who each bring a different piece of what the platform needed to exist. Jeremy Bird is CEO and co-founder. He spent more than a decade at Amazon across gaming and Prime Video, which means he has seen at scale what it takes to build, ship, and sustain interactive entertainment products. That background informs the decisions Makko makes about workflow design, not just technical capability. Understanding how games actually ship at a production level is different from understanding how to build a demo. Jeremy brings both. Tony Valcarcel is co-founder and previously led marketing at Shrapnel, a Seattle-based gaming startup, and served as digital marketing director at Convoy. The marketing lead being a co-founder matters because it means the question of how creators discover, understand, and commit to a tool is not an afterthought. It is part of how the platform was designed from the start. Mike Fehlauer Hayes is co-founder and helped create the Penny Arcade Expo, better known as PAX. PAX is one of the largest gaming conventions in the world, and building it required a deep understanding of gaming culture, creator communities, and what makes people genuinely excited about games rather than just interested in them. That cultural fluency is not something you can hire or add later. Having it in the founding team shapes what Makko is willing to build and for whom. The risk they are deliberately avoiding. GeekWire included a quote from a venture capitalist reviewing Makko that is worth sitting with: "The risk is you become a grab bag of features when studios really want one tool they can rely on every day. Build a couple opinionated, end-to-end workflows that output production-ready assets in a consistent style, then showcase creators who shipped and will publicly say you sped them up." This is a sharp and honest framing of the failure mode for platforms like Makko. The AI game development space is filling up with tools that do a lot of things adequately. The risk is becoming one of them: broad, shallow, and forgettable. A tool you try once and do not come back to. The counter to that risk is not more features. It is opinionated workflows. It is deciding that Makko will do certain things exceptionally well rather than most things acceptably. The character animation pipeline, the agentic game logic layer, and the reasoning modes that separate fast iteration from deep structural builds are all examples of choices made in that direction. They are not general-purpose AI features. They are specific, opinionated answers to specific, recurring problems that creators hit when trying to ship a game without a technical team behind them. What the platform is actually for. Makko is an AI Game Development Studio. That phrase has a specific meaning in how the platform is designed. It is not a generator you prompt and walk away from. It is an environment where you describe what you want, the AI plans and assembles the logic, assets, and systems, and you stay in the loop as the creative director rather than the implementer. The people it is built for are creators who have game ideas but hit a wall when it comes to execution. Writers who want to build visual novels. Artists who want to ship a platformer. Designers who can describe exactly how a game should feel but cannot write the code to make it happen. The intent-driven game development model exists specifically to close that gap, the distance between what someone can imagine and what they can actually ship. Nearly 4,000 people signed up for the beta. That number suggests the gap is real and that people are actively looking for a way across it. The question Makko is answering is not whether AI can make games. It is whether AI can make the right part of game creation invisible so that the people with the best ideas can do the work that actually matters. For detailed walkthroughs and live feature demos, visit the Makko YouTube channel.

Mobidictum
Aug 13th, 2025
Neon Machine secures $19.5M for Shrapnel

Neon Machine, the studio behind FPS Shrapnel, raised $19.5 million in funding led by Gala Games, with Griffin Gaming Partners and Polychain Capital. The funds will support Shrapnel's global and China launches, with closed access in 2025 and open access in 2026. Shrapnel is the first licensed web3 game on China's Trusted Copyright Chain, enabling real RMB trading and cross-chain bridging. The partnership with Gala Games aims to develop a large-scale FPS for over 600 million Chinese gamers.

Decrypt
Apr 1st, 2025
Shrapnel Partners With The Chinese Government To Launch The First Licensed Web3 Game On The Nation’S Official Rwa Chain

Tortola, British Virgin Islands, April 1st, 2025, ChainwireSHRAPNEL, the award-winning first-person shooter, is set to become China’s first licensed web3 game built on the nation’s official RWA Trusted Copyright Chain, where digital assets and IP rights are officially certified by government administrative bodies to enable true digital ownership for all citizens. This historic agreement aligns with China’s push into blockchain-based gaming and opens up new opportunities in the country’s multi-billion-dollar gaming market.The launch expected this year includes:. A dedicated game launcher tailored for the Chinese market. A marketplace built on China’s official RWA Copyright Chain, providing a suite of blockchain tools to help manage the tokenization of real-world assets in a compliant manner

Decrypt
Jul 17th, 2024
Stardust Launches Starbase For The Ultimate Celestial Gaming Experience

San Francisco, USA, July 17th, 2024, GamingWireWeb3 gaming infrastructure company, Stardust, today proudly introduces Starbase, a platform that combines the allure of consumer rewards with the excitement and inclusivity of social gaming. Starting today, gamers worldwide can enjoy Starbase’s dynamic universe of missions and challenges. In fact, players can immerse themselves in 25 different missions, with new partnerships and missions released weekly. The missions and challenges within Starbase are designed to help users earn Gems while playing some of the biggest games in web3 like Nifty Island, Cambria, Shrapnel, BloodLoop, and Habbo Hotel. Gems are a key component of Starbase’s larger rewards program, offering players incentives for their participation. Tony Valcarcel, Head of Marketing, at Shrapnel, says, “Shrapnel is excited to expand our relationship with Stardust and Starnet by integrating with their latest player engagement and acquisition tool, Starbase. Shrapnel Operators can earn bonus rewards when completing missions on Starbase. Starnet’s vision is a key building block in bringing the next billion players to web3 games and Shrapnel is excited to be part of this mission."Industry Outlook With an estimated $100 billion to be spent on user acquisition by 2027, gaming is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the world. This massive market demands innovative solutions, and Starnet, the decentralized network that powers Stardust UA and Starbase, addresses this need by returning the value generated by ad networks like Facebook Ads and AppLovin back to the app developers.Ben, Founder of Cambria says, "We love what Starbase is doing - they have an incredibly slick and fun platform with a great reward structure for PLAYING GAMES! Starnet's vision is perfectly timed; traditional user acquisition is ripe for disruption, and Cambria is thrilled to contribute to this mission."Innovation in web3 is offering new opportunities in player engagement and community building

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