GammaTime, a next-generation gaming and interactive entertainment startup, has raised $14 million in Seed funding to transform how players experience time, progress, and reward in games.

The round includes investments from vGames, Pitango, Alexis Ohanian, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Traverse Ventures, positioning GammaTime as one of the most closely watched early-stage ventures in gaming and creator tech this year.

Founded by Bill Block, Slava M., and Alex Montalvo, the company is developing a “time-shifted gaming” platform that uses AI-driven progression models and behavioral design to let games evolve with the player - even when they’re not playing.

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Gaming Beyond the Clock

Modern players crave continuity. They don’t just want to log in for an hour - they want their gaming worlds to feel alive, responsive, and connected to their lives. GammaTime taps into this shift with a radical premise: time itself can be a game mechanic.

Through its proprietary platform, the company enables asynchronous progression, where users’ achievements, environments, and narratives continue to evolve in real time. Whether a player takes a break for a day or a week, their world doesn’t stand still - it grows with them.

“We wanted to redesign how games respect a player’s time,” said Bill Block, CEO of GammaTime. “In traditional gaming, your progress freezes the moment you stop playing. We’re building systems that make your time valuable even when you’re away.”

This approach isn’t just a design flourish - it’s a deep rethinking of engagement. By aligning gaming with the rhythm of everyday life, GammaTime transforms downtime into momentum, shifting players from “active users” to persistent participants.

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The Engagement Problem Every Studio Faces

The global gaming industry is booming - expected to surpass $189 billion by 2025, according to Newzoo’s Global Games Market Report. But while growth is consistent, retention is the industry’s Achilles’ heel.

Studies show that nearly 80% of mobile and free-to-play gamers churn within the first 30 days, while live-service titles face burnout cycles as content updates struggle to keep pace with player demand. GammaTime’s model challenges this entire dynamic.

By using AI-personalized progression systems that adjust difficulty, rewards, and story arcs in real time, the platform keeps players emotionally tethered to their worlds even when they’re offline. It’s a strategy that merges psychology, design, and autonomy - the new pillars of player retention.

And hidden in that innovation is a massive insight for founders across industries:

When you stop optimizing for user activity and start optimizing for user continuity, everything changes.

What GammaTime understands is that the future of engagement isn’t about maximizing attention - it’s about compounding emotional equity. The companies that will dominate the next decade aren’t those that demand more of users’ time, but those that extend the meaning of their time.

Think about it. Netflix won because it freed users from scheduling. Duolingo thrived because it turned micro-interactions into daily victories. In the same way, GammaTime is redefining engagement by stretching a player’s sense of ownership beyond moments of activity.

This is the kind of paradigm shift every founder should study: when your product continues to work for your users even when they’re not present, you’ve unlocked the highest form of retention - psychological permanence.

That’s not just smart design. That’s time turned into loyalty.

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Backed by Power Players in Tech and Entertainment

GammaTime’s $14 million seed round brought together an eclectic lineup of investors bridging tech innovation and cultural reach.

vGames and Pitango lead the round, bringing expertise in interactive platforms and AI-driven scalability. The addition of Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder and Seven Seven Six), alongside media icons Kris Jenner and Kim Kardashian, signals that GammaTime’s vision extends beyond gaming - it’s about building the next cultural interface for digital identity and expression.

The inclusion of Traverse Ventures reflects growing institutional confidence in startups that blend AI personalization with creator-led engagement ecosystems.

These investors aren’t just backing a company; they’re backing a future where time, identity, and entertainment converge into a single, adaptive medium.

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The Market Moves Toward Persistence

Industry trends reinforce GammaTime’s thesis. According to Accenture’s 2024 Gaming Industry Study, more than 60% of gamers identify their gaming identity as part of their real-life personality, and 70% engage in gaming-related activities even when not playing - streaming, collecting digital assets, or socializing within gaming communities.

Meanwhile, AI integration in the gaming sector is forecasted to exceed $11 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 23% (Statista, 2024). This intersection of artificial intelligence and human behavior design is giving rise to what analysts are calling the “persistent play economy.”

GammaTime’s vision sits squarely in this evolution. By designing systems that learn player behavior, forecast intent, and evolve autonomously, the company positions itself as a potential category leader in asynchronous engagement - a model increasingly being adopted across mobile gaming, AR environments, and metaverse platforms.

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Technology at the Core

GammaTime’s platform is built on three integrated pillars:

• AI Time Engine  -  Uses predictive modeling to dynamically adjust the player’s world state based on historical actions and engagement intervals.
  
• Dynamic Reward Architecture  -  Tailors challenges, collectibles, and outcomes based on player rhythms rather than fixed timelines.
  
• Cross-Game Identity Layer  -  Enables persistent player progression and assets across compatible ecosystems, empowering long-term identity growth.
  

This architecture has the potential to become licensable infrastructure for other studios - essentially a “time OS” for game developers seeking deeper retention models.

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What’s Next for GammaTime

With the new funding, GammaTime plans to expand its engineering and partnerships teams, deepen its AI time-engine capabilities, and collaborate with major studios to integrate its mechanics into upcoming releases.

The company is also exploring creator tools that would allow independent developers to build asynchronous experiences using GammaTime’s framework - further embedding the concept of time-based progression across the gaming ecosystem.

As the gaming industry shifts toward persistence, personalization, and player sovereignty, GammaTime stands out as a company that’s not just designing for attention - it’s designing for longevity.

“Our goal isn’t just to make games that people play,” said Slava M., co-founder and CTO. “It’s to make worlds that keep playing with them.”

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