Wicked Saints, the Black female-led video game studio that utilizes behavioral technology to create interactive games empowering Gen Z, today announces $3.5M in seed funding co-led by Riot Games and Oregon Venture Fund, with participation from a collective of angels and funds who bring creativity, diversity of thought, deep gaming expertise and more.

Jess Murrey isn’t your typical founder. After ten years working in nonprofits to train young activists, Murrey and behavioral change researcher Alicia Clifton decided that mobile gaming could be an unexpected way to broaden their reach. And so, Wicked Saints was born.

Jessica Murrey is an Emmy award winning storyteller who spent years traveling the globe with the world's largest conflict resolution organization before pivoting to the mobile gaming world as the CEO and Co-Founder of Wicked Saints Studios.

Unity unveiled the winners of its Unity Humanity Grant program in recognition of games that have the potential for social impact.

First to emerge from Niantic’s (makers of Pokémon GO) BDI incubator, Wicked Saints Studios closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round, raising $1.1 million to begin testing the world’s first adventure activism game. With an all-female, majority-Black C-suite, Wicked Saints joins an exclusive group of startups helmed by one of under 100 Black women founders who have ever raised $1 million or more.

Pokémon GO maker Niantic Labs announced in early February its Black Developers Initiative (BDI), a program designed to support Black game and augmented reality (AR) app developers.

I’m a Black international peace builder living in southern Oregon—the “Bible Belt” of one of the whitest states in the United States. I was born here, a Black biracial child to a single mom. I was raised by a loving white family, attended a white school and a white church in a white town. But back then, it wasn’t called “white”— it was called “American.”