Gaikai grabs $5m funding

A filing with the US’ Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that upcoming cloud gaming service Gaikai has received $5m in investment.

The document also revealed that the business, backed by veteran designer Dave Perry, has former EA and Jamdat exec and current Benchmark Capital investment guru Mitch Lasky on board as a director – suggesting Benchmark is the VC firm stumping up the cash.

Gaikai reps have not yet commented on the actual filing, except to confirm its existence.

Perry formed the venture along with Andrew Gault and Rui Pereira last year and demoed it for the first time behind closed doors at E3 and then as part of a keynote opening the Develop conference.

Currently a race is on to see who can reach the market first with a cloud-based/streaming technology platform.

OnLive, which also plans to offer a cloud-based service, was unveiled to much fanfare at GDC last year.

But Perry has regularly tried to distance himself from rivals like that – he says Gaikai will move quick and set up multiple data centres to ensure quick proliferation of its service, which is browser-based. OnLive, meanwhile, is both browser-based and also designed to help upsell a ‘microconsole’ device that plugs into home TVs.

Click here to read our interview with Perry about Gaikai from mid-2009.

Click here to read our interview with OnLive from the same time last year.