Educational games outfit Lightneer secures $5M in funding

Educational game studio Lightneer has secured $5 million in funding to push on with its "fun-learning revolution."

The funding round was led by Chicago and San Francisco based venture capital outfit GSV Acceleration, and also attracted interest from IPR VC, Brighteye VC, and Reach Capital. 

Based in Helsinki, Lightneer was co-founded by former Angry Birds frontman and self-styled 'Mighty Eagle' Peter Vesterbacka, who departed the studio in June 2016. 

Lightneer's first game, Big Bang Legends, focuses on stealth-learning key concepts from physics and chemistry, and features a "learn-to-play" subscription model that lets users pay for 30 second mini-lectures from some of the world's top scientists. 

"After 3 billion downloads, and an extremely knowledgeable fanbase legacy of sling-shotting experts, we thought that what if we could give them something useful within the game mechanics too," said Vesterbacka, presumably referring to Angry Birds' massive download figures. 

"Something as fun and entertaining as the best games in the world, with science invisible-learning qualities. What would the world look like, if the best games taught us particle physics?"

Big Bang Legends has already been launched in South East Asia, Hong Kong, and Finland, and will be rolled out globally in January 2018.