Ash Games Raises $1.5 Million From Merak Capital and Impact46
Saudi Arabia-based Ash Games lands $1.5 million to develop Nomad, expand its team, and push Saudi-inspired games to global markets.
Ash Games has raised $1.5 million in a Seed round. Merak Capital and Impact46 co-led the investment, and the money came through the Merak Gaming Fund. Ash Games is based in Saudi Arabia and was founded in 2022 by Anas Bakhsh, Yaser Alahmadi, and Saud Bakolka. The three founders started the studio with a specific brief: to build action-adventure games for PC and console that draw on Saudi Arabia's own stories.
The studio's games are inspired by Saudi culture, history, and mythology. That is not a decorative theme; it shapes the mechanics and the tone of its titles. The flagship is Nomad, an action-adventure roguelite based on the mythology of Ancient Arabia. Nomad is scheduled for release on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox in 2027. Ash Games has also introduced Azooma Escape, a stealth-comedy game inspired by everyday Saudi life.
The two titles show different sides of the same approach. Nomad reaches back through the deep past of the Arabian Peninsula. Azooma Escape looks at ordinary contemporary situations with a comedic eye. One is epic, the other intimate, and both are local in reference while being built for international distribution.
Ash Games operates with a remote-first team of 18 employees. That small group is now set to grow. The seed capital will support game development, expand the team, and strengthen international publishing efforts. The company also plans to scale its production pipeline from a single project into a more consistent flow of releases.
With a 2027 release date attached to Nomad, the studio has a multi-year production window. Seed funding at this stage has to cover more than a single milestone; it has to keep an 18-person team working while the company builds publishing relationships and prepares a roadmap. That is the difficult part of games financing, and it helps explain why the round is structured around the Merak Gaming Fund.
The target audience is not regional. Ash Games wants to bring Saudi-inspired gaming experiences to worldwide players, and its publishing plans have been built around that goal. A remote-first structure helps here: development can stay in Saudi Arabia while publishing, production, and community teams work closer to the markets the studio is chasing. It is a way of operating that keeps the cultural core intact.
For Merak Capital and Impact46, this is an early bet on original intellectual property. The funding was provided through the Merak Gaming Fund, a dedicated vehicle for gaming investments. The two firms are backing a studio with its own mythology, a flagship title with a release year, and a second game already revealed. That is a risk tied to creative output, not to contract work.
Saudi Arabia has been expanding its gaming ecosystem and supporting locally developed intellectual property with international appeal. Ash Games fits inside that push, but it carries the work in-house: development, publishing, and team building are all happening within one independent studio. The investment contributes to the country's ambition of becoming a regional gaming hub. There is a concrete deadline attached to the effort: Nomad is due in 2027, and this money is meant to get it there.
