Coffee Stain Studios kicks off new diversity fund

Indie outfit Coffee Stain Studios has kicked off a new fund entitled Levelling The Playing Field, aimed at encouraging diversity in the industry.

The scheme is designed to finance startup companies and small studios where there are an equal or greater number of women than men working for the company.

"The current level of employment equality between women and men in the games industry is poor," said Coffee Stain CEO and founder Anton Westbergh. "In the Swedish games industry only 18% of its employees are women. This number is increasing every year, however at Coffee Stain we are way too impatient to idly sit by and wait for true equality in the industry to come about."

The initiative is a positive one, although there is no mention of those who identify as non-binary in the blog post on Coffee Stain’s website explaining the initiative. However, there is the news that Coffee Stain have already invested in Other Tales, a two person indie studio run by Tanja Tankred and Mira Dorthé.

Tankred, Co-Founder of Other Tales Interactive said: “We are super excited about collaborating with Coffee Stain and to be a part of their initiative Leveling the Playing Field. It’s great that Coffee Stain are actively working towards diversifying the game industry and we are looking forward to seeing more awesome companies getting the same opportunities. On a personal level, it is great to be working with a company of skilled people that can offer advice and guidance on all aspects of game development.”

The scheme is open to investing in amounts less than one million Swedish Krona (around 90k) for studios with a small team. Coffee Stain will ask for a small chunk of the company in exchange, with the profits from this used to help continue the scheme.