Game, Sett, Funding: AI Startup for Game Development Emerges with $27M

AI for Mobile Game Marketing: Sett Raises $27M

Tel Aviv-based startup Sett has emerged from stealth with $27 million in funding to revolutionize the mobile gaming industry through artificial intelligence. The startup is building AI agents that automate marketing content creation and in-game user engagement for mobile titles — one of the most competitive markets in tech today.

Funding Details

The $27 million was raised across two rounds. A recent $15 million Series A was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Saga VC, vgames, F2 Venture Capital, and Akin Babayigit (Tripledot founder and head of Arcadia Gaming Advisors). An earlier $12 million seed round featured investors from Bessemer, F2, and several gaming veterans acting as angels.

Big Clients, No Big Reveal

Founded in 2022, Sett remained under the radar while securing early partnerships with major players such as Zynga, Scopely, Playtika, Rovio, SuperPlay, Plarium, Candivore, and Unity. Although a website was launched five months ago, the company’s current focus is not on aggressive marketing. Instead, Sett is prioritizing onboarding more than 100 studios on a waitlist and expanding its technical team.

What Sett Offers

Sett addresses what CEO Amit Carmi describes as the industry’s biggest challenge: getting noticed. With over 100 billion in annual game revenue, roughly $29 billion is spent on marketing alone, much of it going to build creative content. That content — such as playable ads — is time-consuming and expensive to produce.

Sett claims its AI agents can produce these marketing elements 15 times faster and 25 times cheaper than traditional human-driven processes. The platform generates interactive, game-aligned content to boost user acquisition without requiring invasive user-level tracking, which is no longer feasible under Apple’s iOS privacy rules.

Sett vs. AppLovin

In a related development, Sett’s indirect competitor AppLovin is selling its gaming studio assets to Tripledot for $800 million, down from an earlier $900M estimate. These studios were initially developed to train AppLovin’s AI for tools like SparkLabs, which builds playable ads. AppLovin, now worth $103 billion, is shifting focus and is even eyeing a potential bid to acquire TikTok’s global operations.

The Vision of Sett

According to CTO Yoni Blumenfeld and CEO Carmi, Sett’s long-term goal isn’t just marketing automation. Their tech stack — including a proprietary game engine and agentic layer — is designed to eventually extend into in-game content generation. While full end-to-end AI game development might still be far off, Sett is laying the groundwork.

“Gaming is one of the most competitive industries in the world. It’s easy to build a game, but incredibly difficult to make a successful one.” — Amit Carmi, CEO

Babayigit called the startup a “no-brainer” investment, citing the deep experience of the founding team and the real technology backing their ambitious vision.

The AI Question

The broader question looming over AI in gaming — and creative industries in general — is how far automation should go. While tools like Sett enable huge gains in speed and scale, concerns around over-automation and creativity loss remain.

Carmi acknowledged this but believes the key is balance. “Our vision focuses on enhancing creativity and reducing friction, not eliminating human creativity entirely.”

What’s Next?

Sett will use its latest funding round to hire more AI and engineering talent, continue refining its product, and begin expanding onboarding to the 100+ studios in the queue. While still early in its journey, Sett represents a major AI play in one of the tech industry’s most vibrant sectors.