At our core, we back exceptionally driven and smart founders with the vision and resilience to build category-defining studios, not just individual games. That’s increasingly rare in today’s landscape, where indie projects often struggle for visibility and AAA franchises dominate with evergreen titles. To stand out, a studio needs either a powerful distribution advantage or a deep technical edge that enables entirely new forms of gameplay. Qloud Games, the team behind Loftia, is one of those rare examples who encompasses both.
Loftia is a game that stands at the intersection of cozy and social, with a long-term vision for becoming a third space, where players can not only enjoy some relaxing gameplay, but also spend quality time with one another with friends both old and new. The concept of social gameplay naturally goes hand-in-hand with the comforting nature of cozy games, but very few games have delivered such an experience at scale, and Loftia’s mission is to be the first.
The Dream Team
What truly sold us on Loftia is their deep passion and understanding of the spaces and audiences for whom they’re building, combined with the entrepreneurial conviction of its founders. Michael Su was already building online communities at 13, when he created one of the most successful private servers for MapleStory, which attracted tens of thousands of players. Years later, following his stint as an engineering lead at Canva, he put his significant ESOP on the line to start a studio. That leap of faith sparked the journey that led to Loftia: bootstrapping development, validating demand through a successful Kickstarter, and growing a thriving community well before raising a seed round. Alongside him, Martina Qin brings complementary strengths from her career as a full-time content creator and influencer, with over a million TikTok followers and partnerships with major brands like Netflix and Apple. Rounding out the team, Eric Mallon contributes over a decade of engineering experience as Loftia’s CTO. Having led technical direction for a 300-person organization at Casenet (acquired by Zyter), he brings the architectural rigor and operational know-how to scale Loftia’s vision into a robust, enduring platform. Together, they’ve built not just a game but a movement, already amassing over 600,000 followers across platforms with virtually no marketing spend. We believe this proves they have the conviction, distribution chops, and community-building expertise to scale a category-defining studio.
As Michael Su, co-founder and CEO of Loftia, stated:
"We are building Loftia for a community that is craving a new kind of cozy experience. One that brings joy and hope, where interactions with other players genuinely matter, and players can find a sense of belonging and community. We've always believed in a game that evolves with its players, and we are thrilled to partner with BITKRAFT to make this a reality."
Martina Qin, co-founder and Chief Community Officer, added:
"Our community is at the heart of everything we do. They've been with us since the beginning, from our Kickstarter to our early development, and their feedback is what drives us. Loftia is our love letter to our community, and we can’t wait to bring them into the world we've been crafting together with them."
The Cozy Gap
We believe there is a clear market opportunity for a game like Loftia. The cozy genre has a massive, untapped market, with games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons shipping over 45 million units and having an impressive 1:1 female-to-male player ratio. However, the most popular cozy games today, such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, were released years ago and lack an in-depth multiplayer community, leaving many gameplay opportunities unexplored. Players are experiencing fatigue with shallow innovation and a lack of ways to leave their mark on the game world.
Loftia's approach is to fill this void by offering a game that’s built upon a delightfully cozy and creative base, with robust social features, player-driven economies, and server-wide projects that tie the world together to forge a brighter, more sustainable future via the combined efforts of its community. This is a "concentric circle" design philosophy that rewards a person's emotional self through personal progression, self-expression through customizability and representation, and a sense of belonging.
Jasper Brand, Partner at BITKRAFT, summarized our conviction:
"The Loftia team is exactly the kind of company we get excited about. They are tapping into a massive and underserved market with a live-service approach that could redefine the cozy genre and create an entirely new kind of social platform. The founders' authentic connection with their community, combined with their technical aptitude and business-minded fortitude, gives us immense confidence in their ability to build a game that will resonate deeply with players and a successful, globally relevant studio from Down Under."
Building for the Future
The Qloud Games team is building with incredible capital efficiency, leveraging a low-cost base in Australia and taking advantage of the substantial local R&D grants and tax incentives. They have already demonstrated their ability to execute: they created a playable demo with a team of six in just over a year, expanded their studio to 30 people, successfully raised $1.3M on Kickstarter, breaking records in Australia with a fully-organic user acquisition strategy.
We are proud to partner with Qloud Games on this journey. We believe Loftia is more than a game we're excited to play; it's a signal of where we think the cozy genre and the broader industry are going next.
