Ed Fries
Founder, General Manager @ 1Up Ventures
Seattle, United States
Ed Fries is a seed investor at 1Up Ventures in Seattle focused on Gaming and Video Games. Ed Fries is the Board Director of Z2.He was a Vice President of game publishing at Microsoft during much of the Xbox's lifecycle. He was a prime evangelist of the platform to game developers and had an important role in the acquisition of developers Bungie Studios, Ensemble Studios and Rare.He is currently listed as the Advisor forthe Ouya, an Android-based game console and development platform.
- Total investments:
- 9
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 33%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Ed Fries invests in
Stages Ed Fries invests in
Countries Ed Fries invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Investment Focus
Industry
- Gaming 7 (78%)
- Video Games 5 (56%)
- PC Games 3 (33%)
- Online Games 3 (33%)
- Console Games 2 (22%)
Stage
- Seed 7 (78%)
- Pre-Seed 1 (11%)
- Series A 1 (11%)
Country
- United States 7 (78%)
- Israel 1 (11%)
- Germany 1 (11%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torpor Games is a video game company that offers PC, switch, android, and iOS game development services. | Seed / Nov 21, 2025 | ||
| Day 4 Night Studios is a game development studio that offer interactive and original computer as well as video games. | $4M / Seed / Oct 01, 2024 | ||
| Sprocket Games is game development studio launching a cross-platform, social adventure game. | $5M / Seed / Aug 31, 2022 | ||
| Toya is developing multilayer games for girls on a Minecraft platform. The playful learning experience enables girls to become the heroes while revealing the life stories of exceptional women. | $4M / Seed / Sep 08, 2021 | ||
| Twin Suns Corp is a video game studio developing action games for console and PC. The company creates video games with its AAA class platform title, which will debut with an original game franchise, providing players around the world with creative and unexpected experiences. Tim Longo, Forest Swartout, and Jeff Morris co-founded the company. | $3.9M / Seed / May 12, 2021 | ||
| BebopBee crafts exceptional, emotive and enduring casual gaming experiences | $2M / Seed / Feb 24, 2021 | ||
| Bit Fry Game Studios is a critically acclaimed game designer, world champion athlete, and award-winning Hollywood producer. Bit Fry is an eight years-in-the-making studio with heavy financial backing from sports and gaming luminaries, including X-Box Co-Creator Ed Fries (1UP Fund), former Red Sox LP, and Vice Chairman Les Otten, and MLB All-Starturned esports VC Ryan Howard. | $3.5M / Series A / Feb 12, 2020 | ||
| Absurd:Joy is a remote collaboration application for flexible working. It aids the gap between existing remote collaboration tools with a human-friendly and expressive environment. | $850K / Pre-Seed / Sep 25, 2019 | ||
| Starform was started by industry veterans with the goal of changing the way people play games together. It puts together small, autonomous teams of talented game developers and provides them with the tools, infrastructure, and support to design and build games in partnership with players, enabling gamers to get state of the art graphics and qualityentertainment.The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. | $1.3M / Seed / Sep 17, 2019 |
Co-Investors
About 1Up Ventures
1Up Ventures is an investment firm that specializes in game developers. The company is based in Kirkland, Washington.
1Up Ventures Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Ed Fries
Founder, General Manager
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FAQ
What does Ed Fries invest in?
Ed Fries invests primarily in Gaming, Video Games and PC Games startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 9 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Ed Fries?
Public channels for Ed Fries include LinkedIn and X (Twitter). For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Ed Fries last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Ed Fries closed in Nov 2025. Shizune tracks 9 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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