a16z speedrun SR003 companies

2weeks builds and modernizes games for players on new platforms, starting with a reforged update to Guild Wars that brings the classic online RPG to controllers and Steam Deck. The studio runs rapid prototype cycles to find games that can grow into durable franchises, using a custom engine and pipeline built in-house. It replaces the slow, resource-heavy development process typical of established studios with a lean, iterative toolkit designed to move from experiment to shippable product in weeks.

Adzap builds a player acquisition and attribution platform for PC and console games, bringing performance marketing tooling to a segment that has lacked it while mobile advertising matured. It targets game publishers and studios that need to measure and optimize user acquisition outside of mobile storefronts, replacing manual, fragmented tracking with integrated performance data. The platform connects with Unity, Unreal Engine, and custom engines to run attribution natively within PC and console titles.

AvatarOS builds AI-driven digital human avatars for brands and media creators, using proprietary 4D and machine learning technology to replicate a person's motion, mannerisms, and physical nuance. The team previously created Miquela, a virtual influencer with tens of millions of streams and followers. AvatarOS replaces traditional film-grade VFX animation, which can run into the millions of dollars per hour of content, with dynamically generated avatars that require no per-frame animation cost.

Clouted builds a managed content distribution platform for artists, labels, gaming studios, and consumer brands. Its engine converts raw footage into short-form clips and pushes them through a network of trained creators, replacing traditional performance marketing campaigns. Clients use it to drive streams, ticket sales, and social engagement at scale.

Communion builds Altar, a social deduction battle royale game that blends fashion, gaming, and blockchain elements into an evolving multiplayer experience. The game targets players who want competitive, scenario-driven social gameplay, replacing static game narratives with a continuously shifting set of outcomes and roles. Altar is the studio's first title and the foundation of a broader "life matrix" game universe.

Crema Social connects people internationally through a combined video call and food delivery experience, letting users share a meal together over live video. The platform targets the international dating and social discovery market, replacing the static swipe-and-message format with a structured, shared mealtime interaction. It positions itself at the intersection of virtual connection and local food delivery.

Definitely Games builds online cooperative games. The studio is run by two engineers with prior game industry exits, combining creative and technical depth to develop and scale multiplayer co-op experiences for players.

Echo Chunk builds AI-generated strategy games targeting casual and mass-market players who find traditional chess too steep a climb. Its first title, Echo Chess, is a daily chess puzzle where each challenge is generated by AI, giving players a fresh problem every day without the overhead of learning full competitive chess. The company also ships a Playground builder that lets players create and share their own puzzle variations.

Eclipsa AI builds a conversational commerce platform for gaming publishers, letting them sell in-game purchases and manage player relationships directly through WhatsApp. It replaces app-store and web checkout flows with chat-native transactions inside a messaging channel players already use. The founding team comes out of Meta, with hands-on experience in messaging infrastructure and commerce.

Else builds adjunct preview environments that let anyone on a product team, QA, designers, PMs, and non-engineers, review and edit AI-generated code changes directly inside a live, isolated environment. Instead of opening tickets that cycle back to an engineer over multiple days, reviewers fix bugs, correct visuals, and propose UX forks through an in-browser agent and visual editor. The result collapses a multi-day PR review loop into a single pass.

Endo Health builds an AI-native weight loss clinic that replaces fragmented in-person care. Glow, its AI companion, coaches patients through daily voice conversations while an integrated telehealth layer handles prescriptions and physician oversight. The product targets people seeking GLP-1 and weight loss treatment, managing the full care cycle from consultation to medication delivery without a physical clinic.

Entropia builds an AI-powered platform that converts webcomic episodes into short, animated anime-style videos, targeting Gen Z audiences. The work it replaces is the labor-intensive traditional animation pipeline, where a single second of footage requires multiple hand-drawn panels and many hours of production time. By collapsing that process with generative AI, Entropia creates a new format sitting between static webcomics and full anime series.

Exia Labs builds Blue, a spatial intelligence platform that commands and coordinates mixed teams of autonomous robots and human operators on defense missions. Blue handles command and control, mission planning, and task assignment across air, ground, and other autonomous systems, replacing manual coordination work for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting operations. The platform serves military customers executing human-machine integrated formations in contested environments.

Flat2VR Studios converts existing flatscreen video games into full VR titles, handling development, funding, publishing, and go-to-market on behalf of IP holders. The studio targets game publishers and rights owners who want a VR version of their title without building that capability in-house. Released ports include Roboquest VR, Trombone Champ Unflattened, and titles across Meta Quest, PlayStation, Steam, and Google Play, with additional adaptations in active development.

Hatsu Labs builds AI agent technology for the gaming industry. The company targets game developers and publishers, applying autonomous agents to automate or augment work that has traditionally required significant human effort in game production or operations.

Human Computer builds story-driven video games and publishes written and video content about game design. Its debut title, Ballgame, is scheduled for 2027 and available to wishlist on Steam. The studio targets players who want original IP with high production values, replacing the mid-tier gap between indie and AAA releases with a new category its founders call triple-I.

Keewano builds KeewanoDB, a database designed for AI agents that need to reason over complete, ordered event sequences. Traditional analytics databases store current state and predefined views, forcing teams into weeks-long data reconstruction projects whenever a new question arises. KeewanoDB stores every event contiguously and in order so agents can query the full historical record instantly, without waiting for a new pipeline.

LFG builds and funds games on Roblox, targeting Gen Alpha players. The studio applies a capital-efficient, high-velocity production approach to a platform where most developers have struggled to produce breakout hits. It combines in-house development expertise with funding to back external creators, replacing the slow, undercapitalized model typical of UGC game studios.

Little Umbrella builds social AI party games that run natively on Discord, replacing static, human-scripted party game formats with AI-driven mechanics that generate dynamic scenarios and personalized gameplay for groups. Its first title, Death by AI, is a multiplayer party game where players compete against AI-generated prompts and judgments. Three additional titles are in development, and the studio also offers Playroom Kit, a platform that lets third-party developers publish Discord-native games using Little Umbrella's infrastructure.

Manifest builds a mental health and self-care app aimed at Gen Z users who want structured, daily support for emotional wellness. The app delivers personalized challenges, guided meditations, and AI-powered voice support that adapt to each user over time, replacing ad-hoc or passive self-care habits with a gamified, streak-based routine. A virtual companion and crystal reward system reinforce daily engagement and habit formation.

NoMi delivers therapeutic self-development outcomes through mobile games aimed at Gen-Z users. Players work through relatable scenarios that challenge negative thinking patterns and build confidence, replacing traditional therapy and formal self-help formats. Each user receives personalized guidance after gameplay, making mental-health skill-building an interactive experience rather than a clinical one.

nunu.ai builds AI agents that test and play games, replacing manual QA work and script-based automation for game developers. The agents interact with devices as a human would, covering tasks from bug detection and onboarding review to competitor analysis and player simulation, across PC, iOS, and Android. Game studios describe tasks in plain English and the agents execute them end-to-end at scale, around the clock.

Metro Labs builds an AI-native entertainment studio centered on a proprietary multimodal AI model trained for creative work. Its platform, Backlot, lets fans co-create content using the studio's own intellectual property, replacing traditional passive consumption with participatory storytelling. The company targets entertainment audiences rather than enterprise buyers, positioning AI as the creative engine behind original IP.

Refactor Games builds physics-driven sports video games, replacing the scripted animations of incumbent titles with a proprietary Sports Physics Engine that generates unique motion every frame. Current titles include a FIFA World Cup party game and Football Simulator, an early-access Unreal Engine 5 football game with a fully moddable environment. The studio targets both casual and simulation audiences across PC, console, and cloud platforms, backed by direct licensing relationships with sports leagues and athletes.

RUNREAL builds a CI/CD and developer tooling platform purpose-built for Unreal Engine game studios. Its open-source CLI, build pipeline, and upcoming registry, monitor, and cloud services replace the manual, fragmented workflows game developers currently stitch together to compile, test, package, and distribute builds across engine versions and target platforms. The platform targets Unreal Engine developers who need automated, cross-platform build and delivery infrastructure without standing it up themselves.

Schemata builds AI-driven virtual training and simulation software for defense and enterprise teams. It converts physical assets and operational data into photorealistic, interactive 3D environments where workers practice procedures, inspections, and maintenance tasks, replacing in-person, hardware-dependent training programs. An embedded AI instructor monitors learner actions and adapts guidance in real time, standardizing expert knowledge across an organization.

Sekai builds an AI-powered platform for interactive content, starting with anime fan fiction. Fans write or imagine a story and the platform generates a playable, interactive version of it, replacing the manual work of writing, illustrating, and producing fan-made narratives. The long-term target is a broad interactive content feed, where any user-imagined scenario becomes a shareable, engaging experience.

Soundmap builds a social music app that lets users discover and share songs tied to real-world locations. It serves music listeners who want to explore what people are hearing in specific places, replacing passive playlist browsing with a geography-driven discovery experience.

Spark Space builds an AI writing tutor for K-12 students in grades 3 through 12. Students get personalized, interactive writing practice with immediate feedback, delivered through a gamified experience that adapts to their interests. Teachers get automated draft grading and class-level writing insights, cutting the time spent on manual review.

TaleMonster Games builds mobile puzzle games that combine casual match-3 mechanics with hero progression and castle-defense strategy. Its debut title, Match Valley, targets players who want more depth than a standard casual game but without the friction of traditional mid-core titles. The team, veterans of Peak Games and Toon Blast, designed the game to run offline and deliver new episode content on a two-week cadence.

TapTap Live builds social trivia games for Gen Z college students, starting with TapTap Trivia. The app offers daily live nationwide games and campus-level 1v1 battles, replacing static question banks with an AI content engine that pulls fresh questions from over 100 news sources each day. It modernizes a classic format so the content stays current with fast-moving culture.

VRL builds viral mobile games for consumer audiences. The founding team previously took NGL to the top of the App Store charts, and applies that playbook to new titles. Each game targets organic, rapid user growth, replacing the paid acquisition treadmill that most mobile studios depend on.