Newcastle gaming startup acquired in seven-figure deal by US motorsports group

Newcastle based gaming startup, Grid Finder, has been acquired by US-based motorsports venture group, RAFA Racing Club, 19 months after first receiving local angel investment. The company has been bought for an undisclosed seven-figure sum in a majority-cash deal.

Grid Finder was started by Tom Stapley-Bunten as a hobby project in late 2020 with the aim of helping online racing games find communities to race with across Playstation, XBOX and PC on games such as F1, Gran Turismo & Forza.

The project remained a passion-project until late 2021 when Stapley-Bunten (Founder & CEO) met his co-founder Nikhil Patel (CTO) at a tech networking event put on by Ignite at By The River Brew Co on the River Tyne.

At the same event, they met local serial tech startup founder, Kevin Beales, who went on to lead Grid Finder’s pre-seed investment round of £200k in April 2022. The company started building the gaming platform from their spare bedroom until moving to Newcastle co-working space, Floe (27 Grainger Street) in mid 2022.

Grid Finder built an MVP of their community management platform throughout 2022 before opening a £1.5m seed round in Q4. The team received £425k in Safenotes from Creative UK and RAFA Racing Club’s venture arm, Maximo Capital.

The cash was used to hire its third co-founder, Chris Honniball (CIO), Kamil Zurek (Senior Software Engineer), Matt Wildbore (Creative Director) Liam Schreiber (Marketing Manager), Jack Harvey (Software Engineer), Mikaeel Ali (Marketing Exec & Apprentice).

The platform has grown to host over 3,000 racing communities and had over 500,000 drivers use the platform to find online racing. The team recently hosted activations with Formula E and Porsche Motorsport North America and is currently working with several gaming studios to build direct integrations between their games and Grid Finder.

RAFA Racing Club is building a network of venues, content and experiences for motorsports and sports car fans around the world. Starting in Houston and Austin, and expanding to Europe in 2024, the clubs will provide a space for motorsports fans and drivers to share their passion for racing.

The Grid Finder team plans to scale the platform throughout 2024, providing more tools for sim racers, league managers, livery designers, modders, engineers, broadcasters, commentators and stewards. In addition, the team will become pivotal in building tech capability across the whole of the RAFA family of brands.

The current team will remain in place for the foreseeable future and continue to be based in Newcastle whilst they grow the team and build the platform.

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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