PlaySafe ID (#19659003)
Image credit: PlaySafe #19659005
PlaySafe ID – a platform that protects gamers from cheaters, hackers and bots — has raised a pre-seed investment of $1,12M (EUR1million).
To bring trust, accountability, and fairness to gaming communities without compromising privacy or freedom.
This round was led
Early Game Ventureswith participation from
Hartmann Capital
Overwolf. The capital raised will be used to fuel rapid expansion and strategic integrations as the company gears itself up for a major push into the market and targets 250,000+ customers in the coming months.
This round gives us the power to move quickly, expand our team of world-class professionals, and partner with games who want to provide the safest and fairest environment for their players to enjoy,”
Andrew Wailes, CEO of PlaySafe IDin a press release. “This is more important than ever.” PlaySafe ID is a digital ID that is anonymous, verified and game-agnostic. It proves that the user is real, has not been caught cheating, or is not inappropriate for children. These are the core issues that continue to undermine online gaming experiences.
By offering a single, secure identity layer, the platform empowers both developers and communities to enforce fair play across titles, without sacrificing player anonymity, or the open and creative nature of games.
Early Game Ventures, which led the round, is known for backing early-stage frontier tech. “We believe PlaySafeID is building the trust layer for gaming—and beyond. In a world where AI and anonymity are eroding safety and fairness, PlaySafeID restores balance with identity, transparency, and accountability,” said
In a press release, Cristian Munteanu,managing partner at Early Game Ventures. “PlaySafeID creates a network-effects wheel. Once a player’s identity is verified by PlaySafeID, it can be used across all platforms, games, and genres. The more developers adopt PlaySafeID, the more valuable this technology becomes for players. The verified identity will eventually become a standard layer in the gaming stack. Just like your Steam account, or Xbox Live profile. It’s a “winner-takes-all” kind of game.”
Hartmann Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging digital ecosystems, also participated in Playsafe ID’s pre-seed round.
“Gaming has quickly become the new social center of our world, with over 3 billion active gamers globally. 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,” said
Felix Hartmann (19459062), managing partner of Hartmann Capital, in a press release. “PlaySafe introduces an online judicial system–ensuring accountability and fairness to spaces that are becoming toxic and uninhabitable. PlaySafe is a universal authority that extends beyond any one game or nation. It establishes digital rule of law on all multiplayer platforms around the world.
PlaySafe ID has begun integration talks with major gaming platforms. The first partnerships are expected to launch later this summer.
Origins
In a message to GamesBeat, Wailes said his inspiration for the company came from his lifelong love for gaming.
“I truly love the competition and challenge, the social side, the amazing worlds and games that we all get to play in. Gaming is special to me and always has been. Unfortunately, gaming has changed,” Wailes said. “This journey started with me and my friends all getting frustrated at the amount of cheaters we were encountering across literally everything we played. It just seemed that there were more than ever, and everyone that I know was having the same experience.”
He felt like his hobby was being eroded.
“One day, one of my best friends made a joke: ‘Hey Andrew, you work in tech and gaming. Just fix this for us’. I laughed and replied – ‘Yeah sure, I’ll just fix cheating in all games lol. Hold my beer’,” Wailes said. “Although it was a jokey exchange, it stayed with me. I didn’t like what was happening to something I loved. I knew gaming could be better, because it used to be. I really did want to solve this problem.”
He thought about it and felt like all roads pointed to the same problem.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re caught cheating, because you just create a new account and come straight back in,” he said.
He said this is also what gives cheat developers an unfair advantage over game devs and anti-cheat solutions. If they get caught, they essentially have an unlimited number of lives to keep coming back in, to figure out how to update the cheats, and to become undetectable again. The endless cycle of cat and mouse continues, with players suffering.
“Additionally, after becoming a dad for the first time I started to hear the horror stories regarding the volume of child grooming and abuse in games. Then I had a penny drop moment that both cheating and grooming have the same root cause; it doesn’t matter if you’re caught. Just create a new account and get straight back in,” Wailes said. “Meaningful accountability is the missing element.”
And so his inspiration was the thought that gaming could be better, more fair, and more fun for everyone.
“The thought that children should be able to explore these amazing worlds without the risks they face today. I want gaming to be better, so I’ll do my best to be the bastion for players, children, parents, and games. PlaySafe ID is my solution to make this a reality,” he said.
The team has seven people from place such as Google and Jagex. Now it plans to expand.
Wailes got started in his free time in early 2023 in Cammbridge, United Kingdom.
“I spent about six months just exploring the problem, how a solution could work for gamers, and chatting about it with mates,” he said. “I then put together a prototype/proof of concept and got a few rented game servers to run some tests. From this success and the reception we had from gamers, I decided that this really had a shot at being a real solution that could truly make gaming better. July 2024 is when I decided to focus on PlaySafe ID full time and to build a rockstar team to turn this into a real venture.”
How it works
Wailes stated that it appears to be quite simple. Gamers are able to claim a PlaySafeID, but they can only have one.
They create an account and then do a quick check. Onfido, our partner and industry giants in (know your customers) KYC and identification verification, is the power behind this. “They’re also based in the UK, so they’re governed and comply with UK and EU data privacy laws and standards,” he said.
The man added, “We use zero-knowledge to verify with Onfido.” They handle the verification and only let us know if it was successful. This process ensures that PlaySafe ID does not have to store or see any data, documents, or biometrics, while ensuring that each user is legitimate. The game will call our API to see if the user is able to play. If they say yes, then they can play. If not, they cannot. It’s that simple.
“In regards to issuing penalties and bans; game developers notify us of any violations: cheating, botting, or child grooming/sexualization of children (CSAM/CSEA). He said that we have some tech in our backend which looks at the trust scores of the developers sending the violation as well as the context of game and the context of violation. We then make decisions on issuing a punishment to the PlaySafe ID. This process and tech allows us to minimize false positives while enforcing meaningful sanctions across games and services. We have some cool security features.” He added, “Obviously, a PlaySafeID is a valuable item, and we want users to be able to protect their accounts and not have them stolen. If we notice suspicious activity, we may temporarily suspend access to the account until the user uploads a new selfie that matches the one they used for verification. This is the same workflow that banks use to allow you to send money. This is also handled by Onfido.”
GB Daily Get the latest news delivered to your inbox every day
Read about our privacy policy
Thank you for subscribing. Click here to view more VB Newsletters.
An error occured.
