PlaySafe ID Secures $1.1 Million To Tackle Cheating, Safety In Gaming
Cheaters and child predators are in the sights of PlaySafe ID.
In response to cheating, threats to child safety, and wider toxicity in gaming, British startup PlaySafe ID has launched with a pre-seed funding of $1.12 million to tackle these challenges by focusing squarely on on digital identity.
The London-based venture's concept for verified, privacy-first digital gamer IDs received investment from Early Game Ventures, Hartmann Capital, and Overwolf. The company hopes the capital will facilitate quicker growth, strengthen product development, and help it forge partnerships as it gears up to secure over 250,000 users in its first few months after launch.
PlaySafe ID aims to offer anonymous, game-agnostic verification, allowing developers and platforms to identify genuine users while removing cheaters and predators, without compromising player anonymity. This ID will be a portable trust badge, demonstrating that a player has not been banned or flagged for inappropriate behavior across various titles, studios, and platforms.
PlaySafe ID's funding comes nearly a year after another digital ID initiative, k-ID, raised $45 million in June 2024 to build safety layers for children in gaming environments. While k-ID focuses on age verification and parental oversight, PlaySafe ID appears to take a broader approach to trust and accountability.
Andrew Wailes, CEO of PlaySafe ID.
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'This round gives us the firepower to move fast, expand our world-class team, and partner with games that want the most fair and safe environment for players to enjoy,' said Andrew Wailes, CEO of PlaySafe ID.
'This is now more important than ever before. With cheating in games as a mass-epidemic that ruins fun for players daily, and the Online Safety Act ushering in long overdue requirements for child protection in gaming, PlaySafe ID's mission to safeguard gamers isn't just relevant — it's now essential for compliance and the future of global gaming.'
The company is engaged in integration discussions with numerous unnamed major gaming platforms and anticipates launching its technology later in 2025.
'PlaySafe ID is building the trust layer for gaming and beyond,' said Cristian Munteanu, managing partner of Early Game Ventures, the Romanian VC which led the round. 'In a world where AI and anonymity are eroding safety and fairness, PlaySafe ID restores balance with identity, transparency, and accountability.
'PlaySafeID builds a network-effects flywheel. Once a gamer is verified through PlaySafeID, that identity becomes portable across games, platforms, and genres. The more developers adopt it, the more valuable it becomes to players — and vice versa. Eventually, the verified identity becomes a default layer of the gaming stack, just like your Steam account or your Xbox Live profile. It's a winner-takes-all kind of play.'
Felix Hartmann, managing partner at Hartmann Capital and Forbes 30 Under 30 Local entry, added: 'Despite its immense social and economic value, the gaming ecosystem remains largely ungoverned. Accountability is fragmented across platforms, allowing bad actors to evade consequences by simply creating new accounts or migrating between games.
'As a universal authority beyond any single game or even nation, Playsafe establishes a digital rule of law across multiplayer platforms worldwide.'
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