Firstpoint VC Launches €50M AI Gaming Fund

Firstpoint VC has officially launched with a €50 million fund dedicated to investing in AI-driven gaming and entertainment startups, targeting emerging markets across Türkiye, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, according to its official announcement.

The firm is led by General Partners Burak Yılmaz and Mike Fischer, each bringing over 30 years of combined experience in gaming and investment. Yılmaz previously served as CEO of WePlay Ventures, Türkiye's first dedicated gaming fund, and has worked with 90 startups across 17 countries. Fischer holds senior leadership roles at Square Enix, Epic Games, Amazon, Bandai Namco, and Microsoft, and serves as faculty at the University of Southern California's Games and Interactive Media Program.

The investment thesis centers on replicating Türkiye's gaming ecosystem success, which has produced three unicorns—Peak Games, Dream Games, and Loom Games—while requiring less capital than comparable markets. "Over the past decade, Türkiye's gaming sector has shown that globally relevant companies can be built with limited capital," Yılmaz stated in the announcement.

Fischer emphasized the strategic shift toward AI integration: "In this next phase, the companies that stand out will not be those who use AI simply as a tool, but those that place it at the centre of product development, growth, and user reach." The firm's advisory board includes Jen MacLean (former Xbox General Manager), Luke Dicken (ex-Head of AI at Take-Two Interactive), and Bora Bora Kocyigit (former Riot Games Country Manager).

Türkiye's gaming success serves as the foundation for Firstpoint's strategy, with the firm noting Poland's emergence as a PC/console gaming hub and Vietnam's rapid ascent in mobile game downloads. Central Asia is also highlighted as an "increasingly attractive destination for digital investment" due to its talent base and strategic position.

The global gaming and entertainment market, valued at $600 billion today, is projected to reach $1 trillion within five years. Firstpoint positions itself at the intersection of this growth and AI's transformative impact on game development, user engagement, and scaling—areas where its regional expertise in markets with "early institutional capital but strong entrepreneurial talent" provides a distinct advantage.

Unlike traditional venture capital approaches, Firstpoint's model prioritizes early-stage support in regions where gaming ecosystems are maturing but lack capital. This aligns with Türkiye's trajectory: "It achieved success faster and with materially less capital than many other sectors," the firm notes, suggesting similar dynamics are emerging in Poland, Vietnam, and Central Asia.

With its focus on embedding AI into core product development rather than treating it as a supplementary tool, Firstpoint VC represents a nuanced shift in how investors approach the gaming industry's next evolution. The firm's emphasis on regional networks—spanning from London to Seoul through its Venture Partner network—aims to bridge global best practices with local market dynamics, potentially accelerating the growth of AI-native gaming startups in underserved regions.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn