Celebrating the 2025 Sport Changers —Adaptation and resilience

Lightspeed partnered with GamesBeat, Nasdaq, and leading judges and mentors once again to spotlight the 25 most innovative startups reshaping the gaming and interactive media industry.

For half a century, video games have profoundly shaped consumer behavior and acted as a catalyst for significant technological innovation.

As an ever-increasing time of our lives is spent in immersive virtual worlds, gaming is expected to continue its pivotal role in how we play, work, and connect.

And like every industry, the gaming world is defined by outliers — the few companies that push the boundaries and pave the way for how the next generation of games are made and played.

That’s why, after the success of last year’s program, Lightspeed, GamesBeat, and Nasdaq again teamed up with industry-leading judges and mentors to recognize extraordinary startups revolutionizing gaming and interactive media.

This year’s theme: resilience and adaptation

The gaming industry is in constant flux, so this year’s list emphasizes resilience and adaptation — honoring ideas and strategies that demonstrate a startup’s ability to not only withstand the challenges facing the gaming & interactive media industry but excel in this turbulent environment.

In June, we asked the gaming and venture communities to nominate standout startups across five key categories:

3D technology & infrastructure

Generative AI & agents

Game studios & UGC

Interactive media platforms

Extended reality (AR & VR)

To qualify, entrants had to have been in business no more than five years and have no more than 50 full-time employees. The goal of this list is to highlight startups that have unique and original visions with a strong focus on execution.

Introducing the Top 25

After receiving an overwhelming amount of entries (almost 40% more than last year), Lightspeed investors and GamesBeat editors narrowed the list of entrants to 75.

From there, a star panel of judges — including C-level gaming executives and senior operators across companies like Activision Blizzard, Amazon, TikTok, Riot Games, Tencent, and DeepMind — scored each candidate (with ~10 votes per startup). We then took the average scores across all judges for each company, sorted the list, and arrived at our final 25.

Here are our five best-in-category winners.

Best 3D technology & infrastructure: k-ID

There are nearly a billion kids and teens globally that play games online. Yet, today, children pay the price for publisher shortcomings: trolling, cyberbullying, exploitation, toxicity, harassment, grooming, and other forms of online abuse.

The judges were impressed by k-ID’s bold approach in tackling one of the industry’s most pressing, complex challenges—providing a platform that allows both families and publishers to immediately create safe spaces for kids and teens online. At Lightspeed, we believe innovation should drive meaningful and positive change, and k-ID sets that standard, building infrastructure and technology that prioritizes both entertainment and safety. (Note: k-ID is a Lightspeed portfolio company.)

Best Generative AI & agents: Bitmagic

The barrier to create games has always been high. While there are three billion gamers worldwide, there are only ~200,000 professional game developers.

Bitmagic believes anyone should be able to create games.

Bitmagic caught the judges’ attention for its groundbreaking use of generative AI — it’s the first system in the world that leverages generative AI to transform text prompts into fully interactive, multiplayer 3D games. By eliminating the traditional barriers to game development, we see that Bitmagic can act as a catalyst for game lovers, empowering users of all skill levels to bring their game ideas to life with unprecedented ease.

With its recent availability on Steam Playtest, Bitmagic is well underway to democratize game development.

Best game studios & UGC: Giant Skull

Led by industry veteran Stig Asmussen, the mind behind God of War III and the Star Wars Jedi series, Giant Skull is focused on creating AAA, story-driven action-adventure games.

While their technical and visual achievements blew away our judges, our panel was also impressed by the company’s commitment to sustainability practices, work-life balance, and diversity, opting to employ remote developers all over the world.

Best extended reality (AR & VR): Eggscape

Eggscape impressed the judges with its unique blend of mixed reality (MR) and humor, a rare combination in XR.

Known for their immersive VR experiences like Gloomy Eyes featuring Colin Farrell and Paper Birds featuring Edward Norton, Eggscape is an extended reality game where players navigate vivid 3D levels and interact with fellow gamers in real time, all while expecting the relentless invasion of alien robots.

With Eggverse’s world-building tool that allows you to share creations with your friends, its combination of art direction, innovative gameplay, and social connection makes for a new direction in XR.

Best interactive media platforms: Pok Pok

Gaming, especially for young children, can be overstimulating and addictive. Pok Pok stood out with its calm, creativity-driven approach.

Inspired by Montessori principles, Pok Pok prioritizes open-ended, non-addictive educational games for children ages 2-8. Collaborating with the top minds in education, the interactive platform allows children to explore and learn at their own pace.

The minimalist design and thoughtful execution have earned them an Apple Design Award, and highlight a shift in gaming towards more meaningful, balanced entertainment that resonates with both parents and children.

The 2025 Game Changers

Game Changers Judges on stage at GamesBeat NEXT in SF: Moritz Baier-Lentz, Dean Takahashi, Kylan Gibbs, Mihir Vaidya, and Lisha Li.

Gaming moves fast, and these companies are on the front lines of innovation. We’re thrilled to announce the additional 20 winners and honor them on stage at GamesBeat NEXT Summit tonight followed by a reception at our San Francisco office with our judges and some previous winners:

You can learn more about our winners on our new home page here.

A special thank you to our judges, leaders, and mentors

Thank you to all of the companies that submitted entries, as well as our panel of judges, who were inspired to give back to the community and brought their expertise and passion when evaluating these companies.