From the Press Release
Mobile and desktop casual-game development studio, Total Eclipse, announced today a €430,000 ($580,000) financing round led by Openfund, along with participating angel investors. As one of the top recent VC deals in Greece, and the first of its kind in Thessaloniki, it marks another step forward for Greece’s budding and tenacious startup ecosystem.
The investment will be used towards an ambitious plan: making Total Eclipse a top brand in multiplatform, casual gaming. This involves growing the team, further developing in-house technology and launching a number of games across various platforms and markets.
Total Eclipse has a strong track record of game releases with seven shipped titles in nine years, across different genres, platforms, and markets. Despite their differences, the games are characterised by their attention to detail, focus on fun and high level of polish.
The studio’s most popular titles, the Clockwork Man series (hidden object/adventure for Win/Mac/Linux set in a Victorian steampunk universe), first introduced the concept of immersive scrolling and zoomable scenes to the genre, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and were amongst the first games to launch on Steam for Linux.
Total Eclipse’s latest release, A Clockwork Brain, is a puzzle game for iOS that blends brain-training with frantic puzzle solving. It has received glowing reviews from thousands of players and has surpassed 750,000 downloads through organic growth.
Argiris Bendilas, Total Eclipse co-founder and CEO says, “We have achieved much through the years: received substantial publisher funding, kept the rights to every IP that we created, ventured to self-publishing, went DRM-free, supported Linux, and launched on Steam. At the core of our efforts lies a desire to make games that delight young and old alike and can be enjoyed by everyone. We are very excited to be working together with Openfund to fulfil our vision for this new chapter in the Total Eclipse story."
George Kasselakis, Openfund manager, adds: “In Total Eclipse we saw a hidden gem, a small studio quietly designing world class games out of Northern Greece. We believe that this round of funding will give the Total Eclipse brand the boost it so greatly deserves.”
The team has already moved to new offices and has hired two software engineers and an illustrator.