HELLO GIANT CAPITAL · FUND I
Independent financing for exceptional games at budgets built to return.
Confidential · Discussion purposes only · Not an offer or solicitation · Terms indicative · Capital at risk
THE PROMISE
WE GET PAID LAST.
Hello Giant earns no profit — no carried interest, no success fee, no margin — until investors have earned a 20% annual return AND at least 1.5× their capital*. These are not marketing slogans, they are our deal mechanics.
The 2% management fee (with step-down) covers fund operating expenses, not profit, and is itself included in the LP net return calculation.*
WHY NOW
The money is starting to return. In new forms. From new players.
$186B — Games in 2026 — bigger than global box office and recorded music combined. Still growing.¹
$2.5B / 96 rounds — Q2 2026 gaming VC — a 12-month high. But roughly $1.8B of it sat in four AI, adtech and infrastructure rounds. Game content saw a fraction.²
10+ funds · $2B+ — New vehicles announced in Q2 2026 alone — including two launched specifically for indie project financing. Not the old equity money returning; a different instrument, from different hands.²
The category is forming. The operators who can pick are the scarce part. Talent and judgement is something you simply can't buy.
THE GAP
WRONG CAPITAL, WRONG DECADE.
The last wave forced a Silicon Valley equity model onto a hit-driven industry with three-year cycles — capital without craft, chasing yesterday’s trends.
Games aren’t startups. They’re products with P&Ls.
WE ARE THE
OF VIDEO GAMES
Creative-led project finance for authentic teams with a point of view.
Recoup-first structures: capital comes back as games sell, upside stays open.
Curation is the brand. The brand compounds.
GENERAL PARTNERS
OPERATORS, NOT TOURISTS.
DAN BUNTING
GENERAL PARTNER
Veteran studio leader with over 25 years at the helm of some of the most successful franchises in entertainment. As Co-Studio Head at Treyarch (Activision Blizzard), Dan oversaw development on the Call of Duty: Black Ops series — helping drive one of the highest-grossing entertainment properties in history with multi-billion-dollar global revenues. Renowned for his ability to scale teams, deliver AAA quality at speed, and sustain long-term player engagement, Bunting brings proven expertise in studio operations, franchise building, and live-service strategy. As an investor, Dan has been deploying capital to game start-ups with advisory and board positions for nearly 5 years — demonstrating industry-leading top-decile success rates with a gross annualized IRR of ~70% and TVPI of ~2.11x.
JONATHAN BERUBE
GENERAL PARTNER
Creative Executive and Veteran Art Director with over 25 years leading world-class teams across film, television, and games. Career includes 5 years in pre-production with James Cameron on the Avatar Sequels, designing VFX for global franchises like Stranger Things and Westworld, and Art Directing AAA game trailers for Blizzard Entertainment. At Hello Giant, Jonathan merges Hollywood-level storytelling with cutting-edge interactive technology to build multi-billion-dollar entertainment franchises. With a proven record of delivering blockbuster visuals and managing worldwide Creative Operations, he is now spearheading a bold vision: empower a new generation of creators with the tools to build the next billion-dollar global entertainment franchises.
MEET THE TEAM
THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY SHIP.
COLM NELSON
VP, GAME DESIGN
25 years: Halo 3, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Call of Duty
MIKAL VEGA
CINEMATICS DIRECTOR
Former Navy SEAL. Call of Duty performance-capture director.
HANNO HAGEDORN
CHARACTER ART DIRECTOR
Uncharted 2/3, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Crysis, Diablo 4.
GUY COSTANTINI
HEAD OF PUBLISHING
Riot, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077. $900M in acquisition.
BRETT BROWN
STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Founded Double Jump. Sold its portfolio to a game publisher.
Fractional bench, staffed deal-by-deal — senior craft without a standing payroll. Brett Brown is an independent strategic advisor, not an employee or contractor of Hello Giant.
THE MOAT
AI LOWERS THE BARRIER TO ENTRY. IT DOESN’T LOWER THE BAR.
Production is accelerating; judgment cannot be automated or manufactured.
Technology floods the market with content. Expertise decides what cuts through — and expertise takes decades.
Experience is our moat.
MANDATE
PROJECT FINANCING, FOUR WAYS.
FULL-PROJECT
We finance the whole game.
GO-TO-MARKET
We finance the launch of the game.
PUBLISHING
We run the operation — without deploying fund capital.
SPECIAL CASE
Shelved IP, finished tech and intact teams, acquired below build cost.
BAND · TOTAL PROJECT BUDGET — NOT HELLO GIANT’S CHECK SIZE
Bands describe the full production budget of the title. Hello Giant’s position is a portion of that budget, sized per deal. Where the money goes: Taxes → Storefront (~30%, e.g. Steam) → Investors → Developer. We recoup first.
INDIE
$2M or under
A
$2–8M
AA
$8–20M · hard ceiling $25M (above that we pass)
UNDERWRITING
EVERY DEAL, FOUR QUESTIONS, TWENTY POINTS.
AUTHENTICITY
Does the audience connect on first look?
EXECUTION
Has this team finished games together? The last 10% is the business.
ORIGINALITY
A forward-looking point of view — or a trend that will be crowded by ship date?
FANDOM
Is there a fan base, or a funded plan to build one?
Each scored 1–5, benchmarked against real market data — not gut feel. Passes stay on file, and we score our own past calls every quarter.
TRACTION
WE SEE THESE DEALS BEFORE THEY’RE DEALS.
Dan Bunting’s active angel portfolio — the sourcing network and judgment behind Fund I. Positions are gross and largely unrealized. Full basis in the data room.
EMPTYVESSEL — Angel · equity — Cyberpunk tactical shooter; ~10M trailer views on minimal spend; NCSoft Series A → full publishing deal, Q2 2027.
LEGION STUDIOS — Angel · equity — Dark-fantasy Souls-like; 1M+ organic trailer views; $8M full-project financing from FICTIONS.
LIL SNACK — Angel · equity — a16z-backed casual games; media deals with Amazon, Hasbro, Wheel of Fortune.
Several positions co-invested alongside 1AM Gaming, where Dan serves as Venture Partner — parallel deal flow, future co-investment capacity for Fund I. Related-party detail in the fund disclosure.
LEGION STUDIOS
THIS IS THE DEAL SHAPE. IT ALREADY WORKS.
2023 – Backed at pre-seed by A16z, 1AM Gaming, and Dan (angel + advisor).
700K – Organic trailer views, zero ad spend (Dec 2024).
$8M – Non-dilutive, full-project publisher financing — milestone-gated, recoup-first — for a 2027 release.
Non-dilutive project finance is how winning independent games get made now. Fund I does it at portfolio scale — with the recoup priority on our side of the table.
THE OPENING
THE MAJORS BUILT FOR A MARKET THAT DIDN’T ARRIVE
~1 in 3 US developers — Laid off across the last two industry years. Scale was the strategy; the strategy did not hold.³
Studios closed mid-build — Tencent shut TiMi Montréal after five years without shipping a game.⁴ PlayStation closed Bluepoint; Ubisoft closed Halifax; Hasbro closed Atomic Arcade.⁵
Franchises ring-fenced — Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six moved into Vantage Studios, a new Ubisoft subsidiary in which Tencent holds a 26.32% economic stake.⁶
Finished teams, proven technology and shelved IP are reaching the market at prices set by balance-sheet urgency rather than by quality — and the buyers who understand what they are looking at are not the ones selling.
Scale was the strategy. Judgment is the strategy now.
NEXT STEP
REQUEST THE DATA ROOM.
CONVERSATION
Thirty minutes with the GPs, A glance under the hood
DATA ROOM
NDA → models, slate, terms, track record & deal structure
SUBSCRIPTION
First close 30 November 2026 Minimum commitment $1M
First close date and minimum commitment are indicative and subject to the fund’s definitive offering documents.
G1 · PPM / LPA / subscription documents outstanding at Manatt.
SOURCES
REFERENCES FOR WHY NOW AND THE OPENING.
TECH RADAR
UBISOFT: VANTAGE STUDIOS
New sub Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six; Tencent’s 26.32% stake.
KOTAKU
2026 STUDIO CLOSURES
Industry closure reporting used in The Opening.
KONVOY
2026 GLOBAL GAMES MARKET
Games projected at $186B in 2026; investment trends and geopolitical tensions.
DRAKE STAR
Q2 2026 GAMING REPORT
Published 16 July 2026. $2.5B / 96 rounds; 10+ new funds and $2B+ capital.
GAME DEVELOPER
LAYOFFS & STUDIO CLOSURES
Rolling tracker used for the industry restructuring context.
GAME DEVELOPER
TiMi MONTRÉAL
Report on Tencent’s closure of the Montréal studio.
Let’s build
Dan Bunting
Co-Founder | CEO
+1 (310) 990-9709
dan@hellogiant.com
Jonathan Berube
Co-Founder | CCO
+1 (949) 689-3283
berube@hellogiant.com
HELLO GIANT
Los Angeles, CA
SEP 12, 2026