Hipster Whale uses part of its Crossy Road millions to fund Halfbrick vets’ studio

Crossy Road makers hop over Down Under to Prettygreat with a $500,000 seed round.

Hipster Whale, the creators of popular mobile game Crossy Road, have backed Australian mobile games startup Prettygreat in an early round of funding. Prettygreat is made up of top players from mobile studio Halfbrick, best known for hits such as Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja. Hipster Whale’s two members, Matt Hall and Andy Sum, will become shareholders and advisers to the company. The group will benefit from the expertise of Hall and Sum — the Australian duo guided its Frogger-like game Crossy Road to see 90 million downloads in six months.

Prettygreat was founded in February by former Halbrick employees Phil Larsen, Hugh Walters, and Luke Muscat. Chief marketing officer Larsen says that the studio is prioritizing smart innovation and design excellence with its upcoming titles, the first of which will be announced soon and will release this year.

“We want to bring Australian development to the forefront, so hopefully this will go some of the way helping there,” Larsen told GamesBeat.