# Pocket Gems

> Pocket Gems is a San Francisco mobile-games studio behind hits like War Dragons and Episode - Choose Your Story. Founded in 2009 by Daniel Terry and Harlan Crystal above a pizza shop while Terry was still at Stanford, the company builds AAA-quality mobile games and a Hollywood-grade interactive storytelling platform, powered by its proprietary mobile-first Mantis Engine and backed by Sequoia Capital and Tencent.

- **Founded:** 2009
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Daniel Terry (Co-founder & CEO), Harlan Crystal (Co-founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** ~200 in San Francisco
- **Products:** War Dragons, Episode - Choose Your Story, Mantis Engine, Tap series (legacy)
- **Notable:** 500M+ cumulative game downloads, $1B+ lifetime gross revenue, 14B+ Episodes read on the storytelling platform

## Products & services

- **War Dragons** — A 3D real-time strategy game where players raise, evolve, and command dragon armies in synchronous multiplayer battles. Built on Pocket Gems' Mantis Engine.
- **Episode - Choose Your Story** — A mobile storytelling network and creator platform with interactive, choice-driven stories. Episodes read have surpassed 14 billion.
- **Mantis Engine** — An in-house mobile-first 3D game engine optimized for graphical richness, performance, and live-service updates on phones.
- **Tap series (legacy)** — The studio's early hits - Tap Zoo, Tap Pet Hotel, Tap Paradise Cove - that helped define the casual mobile genre.

## Achievements

- 500M+ cumulative game downloads
- $1B+ lifetime gross revenue
- 14B+ Episodes read on the storytelling platform
- Built proprietary 3D mobile engine (Mantis) used across titles
- Raised $155M total funding across two rounds

## Latest updates

- **2017-05** — Closed $90M Series B led by Tencent.
- **2015-04** — Launched War Dragons - the studio's first 3D real-time strategy game.

## Links

- Website: https://pocketgems.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pocket-gems
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/PocketGems
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PocketGemsInc
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pocketgems/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/pocketgems

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/pocket-gems
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-19