Game development can be a lengthy and resource-intensive process, with studios often spending years building not just gameplay but also complex backend infrastructure needed for online features, frequently delaying launches and draining development resources. This challenge is particularly acute for smaller studios without large engineering teams, forcing many to compromise on their creative vision or struggle with technical debt. Pragma is revolutionizing this landscape by offering a powerful backend game engine that handles everything from matchmaking and analytics to monetization and player data management, allowing developers to focus on creating exceptional gameplay experiences rather than building infrastructure. Founded by industry veterans who previously built platforms for League of Legends and Destiny 2, Pragma empowers studios like Square Enix External, Omeda Studios, and People Can Fly to get their games online, scalable, and reliable across multiple platforms rapidly. With their recent acquisition of FirstLook, a premier playtest and community management platform, Pragma now provides a comprehensive solution that handles both backend infrastructure and player engagement, dramatically reducing development time and technical complexity for studios of all sizes.
LA TechWatch sat down with Pragma CEO and Cofounder Eden Chen to learn more about the business, its future plans, recent funding round, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
For this strategic investment, Pragma secured $12.75M in fundraising from Greylock Partners, Upfront Ventures, Insight Partners, and Square Enix. The new investment round brings the company’s total funds raised to over $50M.
Not a Series or round; a strategic investment.
Tell us about your product or service.
Pragma is the leading backend game engine that’s powering the online services behind some of the biggest games from studios like Square Enix External, Omeda Studios, People Can Fly, and more.
The Pragma backend powers matchmaking, analytics, monetization, player data, and more – getting developers’ games online, scalable, and reliable on multiple platforms right out of the box.
Pragma recently acquired FirstLook, a premier playtest, community management, and engagement platform, giving us both a back-end (get online!) and front-end (grow your community!) solution.
The two powerhouses combined provide developers with Pragma’s back-end software that gets games online, fast, and FirstLook’s platform is perfect for launching a game, playtesting, and managing game communities, including early access/playtesting, feedback sourcing, key distribution, influencer & community management, entitlement rewards and more.
What inspired the start of Pragma Platform? How is it different?
Pragma came about because my cofounder Chris Cobb and I (and our team of industry veterans) had firsthand experience building live-service infrastructures for huge titles like League of Legends and Destiny 2. We saw just how challenging it was for smaller studios to spin up their own online systems. There were—and still are—so many studios with amazing creative visions, but they can get bogged down by the technical demands of hosting and scaling an online game.
We wanted to democratize that process. By building a robust, modular backend platform, Pragma empowers developers to launch online-enabled experiences without needing massive engineering teams. We’re different because we offer a genuinely end-to-end solution: infrastructure and matchmaking on one side, community management and player engagement on the other.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
For the Pragma Backend, our ultimate goal is to support any studio developing an online game, whether it’s a competitive PC title, mobile co-op, or console-based experience. To give you some perspective, Steam alone saw nearly 19,000 new games in 2024.
Not all of those are online, but the trend is clear: more and more developers are opting to add multiplayer, social connectivity, and live-service elements to their games. It’s a massive and continually expanding market.
We see an even larger total number of games that FirstLook can support, since it solves pain points for any game that’s playtesting or trying to grow a community.
What’s your business model?
We operate on a B2B model, providing our platform as a subscription. We offer flexibility on pricing, so we can be a fit for any size studio; anything from a five-person indie studio all the way up to an AAAA, and we work with the priorities of the game to develop a plan.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We’re always mindful of the macroeconomic environment, especially as the past few years have been tough for the games industry. We’re continuing to focus our efforts on making the best developer tools for game studios so that they can build their games faster and more reliably in a cost-effective manner
What was the funding process like?
Because this was a strategic investment rather than a traditional round, the process was more collaborative than a standard fundraising. We have long-standing relationships with our investors—Greylock, Upfront Ventures, Insight Partners, and Square Enix—and we aligned on our vision to expand both our backend technology and our newly integrated community platform. Each partner brings more to the table than just capital; they offer insights, connections, and a deep understanding of the gaming ecosystem.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
One challenge is that “game backend infrastructure” can sound very technical, intimidating, and complex. It can take time to articulate why a proven off-the-shelf robust backend solution is valuable to the industry of game development —and how big the opportunity is. We spent a lot of time explaining the scope of the market and the real pain points that studios face. But once they understood our traction and the market need, they saw the value.
Pragma Backend studios can use our off-the-shelf features like parties and matchmaking, telemetry, and game data, as well as cross-platform support for player data, accounts, social features, and monetization.
Creating content and meta-game systems is hard enough, but getting them to work cross-platform takes a lot more work, like having to manage each platform’s payments system. And when one of our prebuilt offerings doesn’t fit the unique system that they’re building, they can still use the same foundation that we used to build our feature, still being able to bypass the work to make everything cross-platform.
The Pragma Backend takes the rote (re)writing and complex 0 to 1 parts out back-end and online service game development so the studio can focus on making the best game.
Before FirstLook, studios had to create their own systems to manage playtesting. This never was a priority for studios, since they wanted to focus their engineering efforts on creating the best game possible. Smaller studios often just had people sign up through Google Forms, and then they would manually distribute Steam keys, track NDAs, and collect feedback without having data on a player’s in-game actions or community involvement. This created a ton of work for the studio and limited what they could learn from a playtest. FirstLook makes the process easy for everyone and helps studios get more information about their playtests.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
I think our track record with existing studios like People Can Fly, Omeda Studios, and Frost Giant was important. We demonstrated real-world use cases and how our platform accelerates time-to-market. Our background building platforms for League of Legends and Destiny 2 also gave us valuable credibility.
Lastly, the acquisition of FirstLook showed our commitment to a holistic offering—from getting a complex online game up and running to fostering vibrant communities early on for your game. All these factors combined to assure investors that we aren’t just any tool; we’re building the foundation of how future games will launch and operate.
I think our track record with existing studios like People Can Fly, Omeda Studios, and Frost Giant was important. We demonstrated real-world use cases and how our platform accelerates time-to-market. Our background building platforms for League of Legends and Destiny 2 also gave us valuable credibility.
Lastly, the acquisition of FirstLook showed our commitment to a holistic offering—from getting a complex online game up and running to fostering vibrant communities early on for your game. All these factors combined to assure investors that we aren’t just any tool; we’re building the foundation of how future games will launch and operate.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’re definitely going to continue to integrate FirstLook’s features more deeply into our core platform so that building with both our products can create unique interactions between in-game actions and their communities. We also have some great clients onboarding now and in the future.
On the product side, we’re focused on building off-the-shelf features on our backend because while we already provide the infrastructure to be able to create anything, we want our users to get their games live as fast as possible.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
First, focus on your core competency and what you believe your team’s superpower or competitive edge is. If you have something truly unique, double down on it. Second, keep your burn low. If you can survive the lean times, you’ll emerge stronger when the market picks up.
Finally, don’t be afraid to seek out strategic partnerships—whether that’s corporate partners who can open new markets, or complementary startups who can help fill gaps in your product offering. Creativity in partnerships can be just as valuable as raising another round.
Where do you see the company going now in the near term?
We’re pushing hard to become the gold standard for live-service game infrastructure and community management. We want developers to see us as the one-stop shop for bringing their online game to life.
In the short term, expect a rapid evolution of our toolkit. We’re continually adding features that minimize friction, streamline launches, and expand community-building capabilities.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
I’d have to say Pine & Crane. They make the best Taiwanese. If you haven’t tried it, you must go.
