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PHILADELPHIA, August 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Regression Games, the AI ​​gaming and sports company, announced today that it has closed 4.2 million dollars in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), BBQ Capital, Roosh Ventures and several angel investors to bring the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to games and sports. Regression Games plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering team and accelerate development of its initial platform for testing AI-based games, in collaboration with existing games and game studios.

Regression Games is building the platform and ecosystem to make AI games and sports accessible and enjoyable for everyone. The platform will allow players to write code and AI that control characters, debug strategies in real-time, compete for prizes in tournaments and top spots on leaderboards, and collaborate with friends to create the best bots possible. Instead of playing traditional games where players use a controller or mouse and keyboard, Regression Games users will program algorithms and machine learning models to battle each other. The AI ​​platform will be made to integrate with both existing games and original games developed by Regression Games. With over 3.2 billion gamers worldwide, 175 US college sports programs, and over 47% of US high schools teaching computer science, this intersection of gaming and coding is poised to grow in the coming years. By 2028, the video game industry is estimated to break even 435 billion dollarsas well as an estimated 45 million coders by 2030.

The company was founded by Aaron Vontellone WITH student and first engineer at AI-powered automation company Instabase. Aaron has spent the last few years working on low-code / no-code systems for non-technical people to harness the power of large machine learning models. Before Instabase, he helped develop battle codean annual AI gaming competition a WITH where college students from around the world create virtual robots to compete in video games.

“People really enjoy being able to use their technical skills to compete and win prizes, and with the proliferation of AI, this is the perfect time to start bringing AI gaming to the masses,” he says. Aaron Vontell, founder and CEO of Regression Games. “There is great work by the ML community in using neural networks to play games like Minecraft, Dota 2 and Atari. I want to bring these ideas into the mainstream and give people an accessible place to have fun making serve. and compete with artificial intelligence in games.”

“The growth of gaming, combined with its significant overlap with the sports and programming communities, has created a market ripe for the collision of gaming and AI,” he said. Rick Yang, General Partner and Head of Consumer Investment at NEA. “We met Aaron through our investment in Instabase and are excited to keep him in the NEA family and partner with him as he executes his vision of turning Regression Games into a platform that provides opportunities for competition, education and recreation for players of all abilities. Regression has great potential to become a pioneer in the emerging AI gaming space.”

a16z general partner James Gwertzman added: “One of the core principles of our a16z gaming fund is that gaming is a great breeding ground for new technologies that will then find their way into all sorts of other industries. And regression is a perfect example. What is Aaron doing? Turning AI bot building into a game is not only fun for its own sake, but it will likely create new frameworks to simplify building AI bots. “AI that will have wide applicability outside of games.”

Aaron believes that the tools and approaches for AI competition are useful for more than just gamers, but also for game studios looking to improve AI capabilities or run their own AI competitions. Aaron says, “There are a lot more people playing these days, and there’s a lot of complexity in planning NPCs and AIs that are used in the metaverse, online battle scenarios, etc. The tools and the platform for which we are creating players to compete will also be very useful for developers who want to incorporate AI into their games. It is well known that existing bots in games are lacking, and we can do much more than what is currently implemented.”

Regression Games plans to hold a private alpha test and tournament with players of its AI platform in the coming months. Interested players and game developers can visit: https://regression.gg to sign up for the mailing list and follow Regression Games on Twitter and join the company Discord server for updates!

Regression Games is hiring! Visit https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/regressiongg to view available positions.

About regression games

Regression Games is building the platform and ecosystem to make competitive AI gaming accessible and fun for everyone. Players build AI using code or machine learning models, refine strategies in real-time, compete for tournament prizes and top spots on leaderboards, and collaborate with friends to build the best bots possible. For more information visit: https://www.regression.gg/

About NEA

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformative businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With almost 24 billion dollars in committed capital accumulated since the company’s founding in 1977, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at every stage of a company’s life cycle, from seed stage to IPO. The firm’s investment track record includes more than 260 portfolio company IPOs and more than 440 mergers and acquisitions. www.nea.com

SOURCE Regression games