Starbreeze Is Looking for $26.8 Million to Develop Payday 3

Starbreeze has been going through bad times since its near collapse in late 2018. So, the company is trying to stay alive and going to raise some additional funding for the production of Payday 3.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, Starbreeze is releasing a new pack of shares worth SEK 250 million (approximately USD 26.8 million). Seventy percent of this money will be used directly for the development of Payday 3. The remaining 30% will be used to pay off debts that remained after the company’s reconstruction.

The initial plan was to find a publisher for Payday 3 as part of the reconstruction during the first half of 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has put Starbreeze in dire straits: potential partners stopped supporting third-party projects. Starbreeze conducted negotiations with “several leading publishing partners,” but all of them refused Payday 3 against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new financing plan needs to be approved at the Starbreeze shareholders meeting on August 13. However, this is a pure formality: the initiative has already been supported by Swedbank Robur, Första AP-fonden, Digital Brothers and Fjärde AP-fonden – stakeholders that own 40% of Starbreeze financial securities and have 57% of voting rights.