On February 3rd, 2025, GOAT Gaming, the leading platform for competitive and casual gaming on Telegram with over 5 million active users, secured $4M with participation from TON Ventures.
Following this news, we followed up with Simon Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Mighty Bear Games, and we talked about his journey into the gaming industry, what GOAT Gaming is aiming for with the investment, and its future plans.
Can you share about your journey in the gaming industry and how it led to the founding of GOAT Gaming?
I never actually planned to work in the gaming industry. Before getting into game development, I was a professional guitarist, playing in metal and cover bands while teaching guitar to make ends meet.
One summer, after my money ran out, I took a six-week gig as a professional game tester—and I never looked back. That opportunity turned into a career spanning nearly two decades, during which I held management and product lead roles at companies like King, Ubisoft, Bigpoint, AKQA, Empire Interactive, and Laughing Jackal.
In 2017, I co-founded Mighty Bear Games with a group of friends and industry veterans in Singapore. Initially, we focused on traditional game development, but in 2022, we pivoted to blockchain gaming after seeing the potential of player-owned economies.
I had been involved in crypto since 2015, and by 2021, I was experimenting with NFTs while witnessing firsthand how Web3 gaming was taking off in Southeast Asia, especially with Axie Infinity.
That transition paved the way for the launch of Mighty Action Heroes in 2023, our first Web3 title, and ultimately led to the creation of GOAT Gaming—a competitive and casual gaming platform built exclusively for Telegram, now engaging 3 million monthly users.
Our team has a history of mastering emerging platforms – from Apple Arcade to UEFN– and with GOAT Gaming, we’re bringing this expertise to Telegram, redefining gaming with cutting-edge innovation and a thriving ecosystem for the next generation of players and developers.
What factors influenced the decision to focus on Telegram as the primary platform for GOAT Gaming?
GOAT Gaming represents the next evolution in interactive entertainment. Drawing from Mighty Bear’s track record of rapidly launching successful games on emerging platforms—from Apple Arcade to UEFN—GOAT Gaming is now pioneering game development and distribution on Telegram.
This strategic focus aligns with our commitment to staying at the forefront of innovation, bringing high-quality gaming experiences to new audiences. Much like how free-to-play and browser games were once dismissed as fleeting trends but ultimately reshaped the industry, Telegram represents the next frontier in gaming accessibility and distribution.
GOAT Gaming is leveraging this platform to reach an underserved audience—players in emerging markets who may not have access to traditional gaming hardware. By embracing Telegram, we’re continuing our legacy of adapting to and leading on new and innovative platforms, ensuring that more players worldwide can engage with immersive gaming experiences.
GOAT Gaming’s AI tooling suite, AlphaAI, is set to power over 50 games by the end of 2025. Can you explain how AlphaAI enhances game development and what role it plays in shaping the player experience?
Our AI tools uniquely streamline rapid game development, enabling us to bring fresh experiences to players faster than traditional studios.
This foundation positions GOAT Gaming as more than a developer—it’s an ecosystem poised for exponential growth.
Our goal is to empower hundreds of new games by third-party developers. With our AI toolkit and access to the community, developers and game studios can seamlessly launch, monetize, and scale their games on the platform.
AlphaGOATS is described as an autonomous AI agent system built on a dataset of over 100 million gaming transactions. How do you see AlphaGOATS transforming player interaction and engagement within the Web3 gaming ecosystem?
AlphaGOATs are gaming’s ChatGPT moment: a revolutionary leap forward in how players can engage and participate in value creation in-game.
Acting as passive wealth engines, AlphaGOATs compete in tournaments and participate in 24/7 livestreams where humans make predictions, earn a share of the fees generated, and generate revenue for their owners 24/7—unlocking limitless earning potential.
AlphaGOATs were created with the community in mind as a way to enable anyone—not just developers and investors —to create, compete, and earn effortlessly.
While Eliza has enabled developers and tech-savvy folks to launch their own agents, AlphaGOATs empowers the average gamer to participate in the AI wave by deploying AlphaGOATs to play their favorite Telegram games and earn.
Basically, with AlphaGOATs, anyone can spin up an AI agent in under a minute—no technical experience is needed.
What challenges have you faced in the development and launch of GOAT Gaming, and how have you addressed them?
One of the biggest challenges in building and launching GOAT Gaming was adapting to the unique speed of a Telegram miniapp. Unlike traditional mobile games with longer development cycles, we had to push updates almost daily.
This intense pace put a huge strain on our team, but we embraced it by refining our workflows, improving adaptability, and leveraging AI to accelerate development. By focusing on lightweight, frictionless web3 gaming experiences, we eliminated app store barriers and made GOAT instantly accessible across all devices, opening the door to billions of potential players.
Another major hurdle was scaling our team and operations while navigating talent shortages, especially in Singapore.
To overcome this, we expanded into Vietnam and increased hiring efforts in Europe, creating a “hub and spoke” model that balances leadership and development resources across regions.
We also made diversity a priority, ensuring our team reflects the players we aim to serve. These strategic moves have positioned GOAT Gaming for long-term success in the evolving landscape of web3 and AI-driven gaming.
Image Credit: GOAT Gaming
What are your thoughts on the future of AI and Web3 technologies in gaming, and where do you see GOAT Gaming in this ecosystem?
AI agents will play a transformative role in the future of user-generated content (UGC), allowing players to create high-quality experiences without requiring advanced programming or artistic expertise. This democratization of game development will lower barriers to entry, empowering smaller studios and independent developers to compete against the larger studios.
By combining AI-driven efficiency with the decentralized principles of Web3, GOAT Gaming is shaping a future where games are not just played—but co-created, owned, and evolved by the community.
GOAT Gaming envisions a future where Telegram becomes the most accessible gateway to Web3, onboarding the next billion users into a player-owned economy.
As an AI Infrastructure company, we aim to host hundreds of games, integrate autonomous AI agents, and create a seamless, intelligent gaming experience that redefines how players engage with digital worlds.
Going forward, I see GOAT Gaming evolving into something akin to Shopify for AI agents, where users can create AI agents with specific modules and functionalities. Gaming is just the tip of the spear for testing and adoption because it’s an ideal environment for experimentation.
Simon Davis
Co-Founder and CEO of Mighty Bear Games
