BPI invests in welevel's Series A, led by Transcend Fund
What's the deal? Burda Principal InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (BPI) has invested in welevel, a Munich-based game studio, as part of its Series A round. The round was led by Transcend FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, with existing investor BITKRAFT VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → also participating. BITKRAFT led welevel's seed financing round last year.
This is BPI's first investment under BurdaGP, its European gaming initiative developed in partnership with UnternehmerTUM and TUM Venture Labs.
welevel, founded by serial entrepreneur Christian Heimerl, is developing SolidRiver — a co-op survival game blending city-building, RPG progression, and open-world gameplay. The studio uses a proprietary technology platform and an AI-first approach to deliver AAA-quality visuals with a small, independent team.
Why now? welevel sits at the intersection of two powerful trends: AI-driven game development and user-generated content. Its tech stack lets a lean team produce work typically requiring much larger studios, a proposition that's increasingly attractive as development costs balloon across the industry.
"welevel is exactly the kind of company this initiative was built for: one of only a few independent studios with AAA ambitions in Germany, a cornerstone for Munich's growing gaming ecosystem, and a team that has spent the past years building a real technological head start in AI-driven game development," said Friedrich von Wulffen, principal at BPI.
What could go wrong? The AAA gaming space is notoriously expensive and competitive. Building a survival game with city-building and RPG elements is ambitious — and executing on that scope with a small team, even one armed with AI tooling, carries real risk. The co-op survival genre is also crowded, meaning SolidRiver will need a genuinely differentiated experience to break through.
The signal: BPI's launch of a dedicated gaming programme — BurdaGP — alongside its first investment under that banner suggests a structural bet on European gaming, not just a one-off deal. With BITKRAFT Ventures, a specialist gaming fund, returning for the Series A after leading the seed, the investor mix points to rising conviction that AI-native studios can compress development costs enough to make independent AAA-quality games a viable venture bet.
Read more: burdaprincipalinvestments.com
