Keywords Studios establishes investment arm to back innovative firms

Irish video gaming company Keywords Studios has established a new investment arm of the company that will back innovative technologies and services that will benefit its clients.

UK-incorporated Keywords Ventures (KWV) will seek out and support innovative new ventures, giving its investment targets access to funding and commercial agreements that benefit from Keywords’ global reach.

Senior members of the Keywords executive team have formed a committee that will propose investments to the board. The company expects to take minority stakes in the firms it backs.

"We are excited by the establishment of KWV, which we believe will help bring products, technology and services to market that will be attractive to our clients. Our established relationships with most of the world's leading games companies, and our expanded global presence, provide a strong platform to support investees' growth while adding further value to the relationships we enjoy with our clients," said Keywords chief executive Andrew Day.

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“Our strategy to consolidate the fragmented market for video games services remains unchanged, with KWV being highly complementary to this in bringing additional capabilities to our global services platform.”

Its first investment is in AppSecTest, which has created a cloud-based automatic testing solution for mobile apps, including games. KWV will invest up to £300,000 (€339,000) in the company’s Series A round, taking a 45 per cent stake in the firm. The final value of the investment is dependent on the company hitting development milestones.

Testing solution

The funding will be used to speed up development of testing solution AS Analyser, which looks at apps’ compliance with GDPR and produces a detailed report of any aspects of the app that may contravene the regulations.

Keywords has also agreed an exclusive worldwide licence to commercialise AS Analyser, and will begin trials in July. It is targeting a full deployment of the solution in September.

“We believe AppSec Test fits the investment model of KWV particularly well, said Mr Day. “We look forward to supporting the testing and improvements to its existing Android version of AS Analyser and also the development of its iOS version, as AppSec Test moves towards full commercialisation.”