Rise of Fearless, an African-owned mobile battle royale game inspired by Ethiopia’s 1896 victory at the Battle of Adwa, has raised $1 million from Epic Edges Capital.
The funding is structured as a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) and will go into talent, technology, infrastructure, marketing, and community building.
It also brings a group of international games executives into the company. Miniboss Solutions, led by Adam Krause and TJ Consunji, will act as an embedded publishing partner. IDG Intelligence, headed by Yoshio Osaki, will supply market research and strategy. Trick Question Studios, founded by TQ Jefferson, will handle franchise definition and creative direction. Spectra Entertainment will lead art and technical development.
Kanessa Muluneh, founder of Rise of Fearless described these firms as service providers who hold no stake in the game and will earn no royalties.
“We couldn’t be more excited about our new team taking an African-owned gaming franchise to international distribution and commercial scale,” she said in a statement.
Remco Coerman, founder of Epic Edges Group, said the game has the potential to resonate well beyond its home market.
The game launched in 2025 and has passed 15,000 downloads, with its largest communities in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Muluneh said about 50,000 players are active today, although promotion was stopped months ago while they onboarded the new team.
She plans to take it offline for an upgrade and hopes to relaunch within a couple of weeks. “Quality matters first,” she said.
The game earns only from advertising so far, and Muluneh said she did not set out to monetise in its first two years. Payments are the main hurdle. Few African markets let players pay easily online, so she plans to pair online options such as Xsolla with offline gift cards and codes. Her short-term goal is 100,000 players.
An earlier report described Rise of Fearless as a Web3 game where players would earn in-game NFT collectibles. Muluneh now says blockchain and pay-to-earn features remain an option, but not a priority.
The timing reflects a market that is growing faster than the studios serving it. Newzoo and Carry1st forecast that Africa’s player base will pass 406 million in 2026, with revenue reaching $1.98 billion and mobile taking 81.8% of it.
Yet the 2025 Africa Games Industry Report from KPMG and Maliyo Games found that only 3% of the 66 studios surveyed had reached $1 million in revenue. Last week, Google picked 10 studios for its Play Indie Games Fund.
Muluneh says her aim is to keep the game’s intellectual property in African hands and to make Rise of Fearless a hub for local developers. “The brilliant ones don’t have to leave the continent to build,” she said. She called the investment “patient” and “not a quick flip.”
Last updated: November 3, 2026
