February 11, 2025
With $10M fundraise, André Swanston launches new cloud video gaming platform
Steve Laschever
Andre Swanston says video games are a big part of his leisure time.
Connecticut entrepreneur André Swanston has revealed a new cloud gaming venture, and announced a $10 million seed round for the start-up, led by Wellington Management.
PHῩND is a platform that allows consumers to stream video games via a smart TV in an ad-supported, subscription-free service, with no additional gaming hardware.
“Gaming is something I've been bullish on for many years,” Swanston said in an interview with the Hartford Business Journal. “I think the cloud gaming industry is really almost 10 years behind the streaming television industry in terms of that maturation.”
Swanston has rebranded his Stamford-based company, formerly Swanston Labs, as PHῩND, and says the venture will be his sole business focus going forward. Connecticut Innovations, which has backed Swanston’s previous ventures, also participated in the seed round, along with Bessemer Venture Partners and Jozy Altidore.
Swanston says his solution addresses the problem of “subscription fatigue” among many consumers.
“Whereas there are subscription based services – Xbox, Game Pass from Microsoft and others – that you can pay and subscribe,” he said, “there isn't a real scalable, high-quality free solution where the value proposition is that the consumer doesn't have to pay a subscription, but they do have to watch some sort of sponsorship message or advertising before the game starts.”
Consumers can play using devices they have to hand, including TV remotes, smartphones or existing gaming consoles. He believes an ad-supported service that needs no additional hardware will appeal to many more people. Over the past five years, more than 500 million smart TVs capable of supporting a cloud gaming app have shipped globally, outpacing the combined total of gaming PCs and consoles.
“I do think it broadens the potential addressable market,” he said. “People can't always afford to spend $500-plus on the new gaming console or $3,000 on a fancy gaming PC.”
And he says, they’re an attractive market for advertisers. Currently, video games played on a TV or large screen generate only about 7% of their revenue from ads or sponsors, compared to 50% for the broader media sector, according to PHῩND.
“Avid gamers are sometimes hard to find across the traditional mediums, but they tend to be well educated, affluent, more likely to try new things,” he said. “Also the engagement level is very high.”
Swanston made his name building Tru Optik, a data marketplace for streaming TV services that was sold to Transunion in 2020 in a nine-figure deal.
He’s also the owner, through the Connecticut Sports Group, of CT United Football Club, a new MLS Next Pro team, which is slated to be based at a new stadium in Bridgeport. PHῩND will become the new sponsor of the club’s youth academy.
Swanston said the cloud gaming platform has been trialed on test users, and it’s now ready to move into beta mode, while the company works on making sure it’s adaptable to different devices and operating systems. Players in the U.S. can now sign up for the beta waitlist.
He expects a full market roll out “significantly later in the year.”
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