Sea shares rose nearly 9% in premarket trading.Sea Limited is making some early-stage gaming fund-raising news today, as its Garena unit is leading a $4.5 million seed round for Revel Games, a recently founded Turkish start-up focused on puzzles.
Along with Garena, Sandbox Agency co-founders Sebastien Borget and Arthur Madrid are invested in the round, Bloomberg reports.
Revel Games was founded in October.
Elsewhere, Bloomberg notes billionaire Sea CEO Forrest Li has written to employees to address the dizzying drop in the company's stock -down 59.5%so far in 2022, and down nearly 73%over the past six months. (See a chart of SE performance vs. broader communications and videogame trackers here.)
“This drop is painful, and you might be feeling frustrated, disheartened, or worried about Sea’s future,” he says in the mail seen by Bloomberg. “Do not fear: we are in a strong position internally, and we are clear on our next steps. This is short-term pain that we have to endure to truly maximize our long-term potential.”
That marks some unusual new openness from the company that wasn't really demanded as it rallied 2,300% from 2017 to 2021, Bloomberg notes; now investors and employees are seeking more information.