Delphi Interactive, a New Player in LA's Gaming Scene, Raises $17 Million

Delphi Interactive, a startup looking to work with independent gaming studios to publish their video games, has raised nearly $17 million in funding, according to a regulatory filing.

Santa Monica-based Delphi has hauled in $16.8 million of a planned $19.2 million in funding, it said in a Feb. 10 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company began raising the funds in March 2020 and has since secured commitments from 17 investors, per the document.

Delphi’s sparse website and LinkedIn page only note that it “licenses global franchises and partners with top independent video game developers to finance and co-publish AAA video games.” The company, formerly incorporated under the name Mythic LLC, has operated under the radar to date and has not publicly disclosed which gaming firms it may be working with to produce video games.

Representatives for Delphi Interactive did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.

Filings indicate that Delphi is led by partners Chad Troutwine and Casper Daugaard, who have backgrounds in the worlds of tech and entertainment.

Troutwine is a serial entrepreneur as well as a film and television producer. In addition to co-founding ventures like academic test preparation company Veritas Prep and Los Angeles-based coding education platform Codesmith, he’s produced multiple films and documentaries and helped launch Freakonomics Media, an offshoot of the best-selling 2005 book “Freakonomics” by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner.

Daugaard, meanwhile, previously co-founded and led L.A.-based startup Spylight, which helped Hollywood studios monetize merchandise and intellectual property from their films and TV shows. Spylight was acquired in 2017 by Belgium-based competitor Spott.

Together, Troutwine and Daugaard also run Beverly Hills-based film and TV production company Dragonfire, according to their LinkedIn pages.

Delphi’s SEC filing indicates that an estimated $900,000 of the startup’s funding will be used as payment for its two directors, though it does not specify how much would be granted to either.