Andreessen Horowitz’s first African startup bet is a mobile games company

South African games publisher Carry1st becomes Andreessen Horowitz's (a16z) first investment in a startup based in Africa.

A South African startup’s ambition to be the platform of choice for game studios seeking users and monetization in Africa has received the backing of popular Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Google, and legendary American rapper Nas.

Founded in 2018, Carry1st allows game developers to publish and distribute their work, manage operations, and receive payments through multiple channels in Africa. In 2020, the company signed publishing deals for seven games from studios like US-based Tilting Point which creates Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob, Israel-based CrazyLabs, and Raketspel, a Swedish studio with over 120 million content downloads. Carry1st has also created and published one mobile game itself – a trivia app with over a million downloads.

The company’s strides so far have been with the support of investors like South Africa-based CRE Ventures which gave it seed money in 2018, and Konvoy Ventures which helped it raise $6 million in a Series A round last year.

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