Pragma Platform Inc., the Culver City-based developer of a software engine for video game designers, announced April 20 that it had raised $12 million in a Series A funding round.

The investment round was led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Zynga Inc. founder Mark Pincus, Oculus founder Nate Mitchell and Cloudera Inc. founder Amr Awadallah. It adds to the $4.2 million in seed funding that the company announced last year, shortly after launching in late 2019.

Chief Executive Eden Chen said in a statement that the company had used that seed funding to build up its team of employees and to roll out private beta testing for its full set of game development tools.

Chen previously founded augmented and virtual reality development studio Fishermen Labs and launched Pragma with former Riot Games Inc. engineering lead Chris Cobb.

Chen said the company’s engine is a “backend-as-a-service” product for multiplayer games that handles things like player account management and matchmaking, allowing game developers to “focus on captivating storytelling, artistic animation, and innovative gameplay.”

Pragma’s focus on multiplayer gaming comes amid a surge in social gaming driven by the pandemic and the popularity of multiplayer experiences among younger players, Chen said.

Few options currently exist for studios seeking to outsource the creation and maintenance of backend infrastructure, which raises development costs, he added.

The company also announced that Accompany founder Amy Chang and Greylock partner David Thacker would join Pragma’s board.  

In a statement, Thacker said that Pragma had “assembled the best backend team in the gaming industry, with prior experience scaling games to millions of concurrent players.”