cloud-gaming
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The Phone Game That Escaped the Phone
BlueStacks began by making Android apps run on a PC. Its lasting business is making a small-screen game feel at home on the biggest screen in the house.
The Controller That Outgrew the Phone
Backbone began by snapping buttons onto an iPhone. Its larger wager is that the same controller, and the app behind it, can follow a player from pocket to television without asking whose games they play.
Aethir rented the GPUs. Now it wants to build the capacity.
The Singapore company turned distributed computing into a business serving AI and gaming. Its next bet is more physical: bringing new GPU capacity online where customers are already asking for it.
Orca
Orca is a San Francisco startup (Y Combinator S24) that lets anyone build, host, and play Minecraft games without writing code. You describe a mod, plugin, or world in plain English and Orca's AI writes the code, generates textures, compiles a real mod, tests it, and can deploy it live to a free 8 GB server in seconds. The company frames its ambition as building a Roblox-style creator platform on top of Minecraft's 300M+ player base, playable from a browser or a free desktop client.
Gamevice
Gamevice is a Simi Valley, California hardware company that makes attachable gamepad controllers which clamp onto an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone and turn it into a handheld console. Born from the Wikipad gaming tablet project, the company shipped its controller through hundreds of Apple Retail stores, raised a $12.5M Series A in 2017, and built its newer Flex line as an official 'Designed for Xbox' accessory tuned for Xbox Cloud Gaming and other cloud services. It is also known for a long-running patent fight against Nintendo over the Switch's detachable Joy-Con design.
Wavedash
Wavedash is a San Francisco-based startup (YC X25) that lets players jump into high-end PC games directly in their browser - no launcher, no download, no install. Built on WebAssembly and WebGPU, the platform acts like 'Steam for the web,' giving indie developers a friction-free distribution channel where they keep 90% of revenue. Backed by Floodgate's Mike Maples Jr., Jawed Karim (YouTube co-founder), Griffin Gaming Partners, and Y Combinator, Wavedash launched its public beta in December 2025.