Exclusive: Remix raises $5M in seed funding to become ‘TikTok for games’

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Remix, which began under the name Farcade, has closed a seed funding round led by Archetype bringing its total funding thus far to $6.75 million, Blockworks has exclusively learned.

Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Lemniscap, and Zynga cofounder Justin Waldron also participated in the $5 million seed round.

Remix is part vibe-coding gaming tool, part consumer-facing game platform. The mini app has seen over 570,000 players so far across 800 live games that have been played over 17 million times, the team says.

Farcade began about eight months ago when its cofounders initially thought they wanted to build a Mario Party-style experience.

“We built this tool internally to help us build games. And we ended up building about five or six games in the first day,” Remix cofounder Charlie, who prefers not to share his last name publicly, told me in an interview.

“The craziest part was, like, how little hand-holding we needed to do. The AI basically wrote all of the code. And so there was basically this, like, epiphany moment where we just thought that was gonna be the future of gaming,” he said.

“That really inspired this idea of building a social network for games, or a TikTok for games, where instead of scrolling a feed of videos, you’re scrolling a feed of games, and you can just instantly play those games as they come into your feed.”

Last week, the startup officially rebranded to Remix in part because the platform itself has expanded beyond just Farcaster (and isn’t affiliated with the Farcaster team).

Game creators using Remix can type in their own prompts or, ultimately, “remix” others’ games by combining elements together or making modifications to “ship” a new version. Charlie described the process as a bit like a game of telephone.

This turns mobile game development into something fast and fun, not to mention virtually free, for creators. Of course, the final products are AI-reliant and could have bugs or might feel repetitive for players if they encounter many in a row that are the same style.

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But Remix is tapping into the current vibe-coding trend that’s gained attention across crypto and AI.

Remix plans to eventually monetize by taking a cut from ads and in-app purchases in the games it hosts.

On the creator side, game makers will be given the ability to sell in-game items and pay to boost the discoverability of their games in the Remix feed.

“When anyone can build apps,” Charlie said, “we think the demand for eyeballs is really just going to go exponential from here. And that demand for eyeballs is already extremely high. And so if you can have a platform that solves that for people — or if you’ve created a game and Remix is the best place for you to get your first 100 gamers or 1,000 gamers — we think there’s a lot of opportunity to monetize it from that side.”

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Currently, Remix’s main onchain element is that users can connect their Farcaster and World identities to the mini app. But their onchain monetization toolkit is slated to launch in a few weeks.

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