When a founder of Daniel Kan's caliber starts something new, you pay attention.
Daniel is a 2x Felicis-backed founder whose previous company, Cruise, became one of our earliest billion-dollar exits. So when I heard about Daniel building a new company, I reached out immediately. Some decisions are obvious, and backing Daniel again was one of them.
Today, I'm thrilled to announce Felicis's investment in Fifth Door, an AI-native gaming platform.
Gaming is one of the most natural and high-impact frontiers for artificial intelligence. The numbers tell part of the story: 3 billion gamers worldwide, a $184 billion global market in 2023, and projections exceeding $435 billion by end of 2030. But the real opportunity goes deeper than market size.
AI is fundamentally changing how games are built, personalized, and played. It's reducing development costs, enabling unprecedented levels of customization and user-generated game content at scale. Fifth Door is building a platform reimagined with AI at the core.
What excites me most about Fifth Door is that it's a platform play. Rather than building a single game, they are creating the underlying infrastructure to enable the development of many games. This approach allows for scalability (one platform with infinite creative possibilities!) while unlocking network effects as more creators build on it. By reducing friction in game creation, Fifth Door is democratizing who can design and share compelling gaming experiences.
The timing couldn’t be better. Generative AI has matured enough to produce truly dynamic and engaging content, and consumers are increasingly comfortable with AI-driven experiences. At the same time, traditional game development remains costly and slow, leaving room for a new paradigm. Fifth Door sits at the intersection of these trends, poised to redefine how games are imagined, built, and played.
At Felicis, we back founders who reimagine what the world can be, and combine deep domain expertise with execution at speed. Daniel embodies this. Daniel has exceptional clarity of thought, relentless hustle, and the rare ability to think multiple moves ahead. He’s reimagining how games can be created and experienced in an AI-first world.
Gaming has always been about imagination, creativity, and connection. With AI, those possibilities expand exponentially. I couldn't be more excited to support Daniel on this journey.
Welcome to the Felicis family (again!), Daniel. Let the games begin.
