Startup Electric Gamebox wants to bring gaming to malls

Electric Gamebox thinks it can one-up real-world shopping.

The London-based startup, which creates interactive gaming centers for malls, yesterday announced an $11 million Series A2 funding round. Count mall giant Brookfield Asset Management, via its Retail Revitalization program, among the investors.

• The funding will fuel Electric Gamebox’s expansion in the US and UK, including 100 new locations in the next two years and 1,000+ by 2026; it currently has four.
• Brookfield plans to level up malls with game rooms in cities like Chicago, Houston, and LA in 2021.

Reset button: “Malls have to reinvent themselves and create new drivers,” Electric Gamebox cofounder and CEO Will Dean told Retail Brew. “Location-based entertainment businesses see that the days of the traditional bowling alleys and movie theaters are over.”

• US mall traffic is rebounding, but it still needs help. Visits were up 86% in March from the prior year, according to Placer.ai data, but down 24% versus March 2019.
• Electric Gamebox opened a new spot in Dallas’s Grandscape Malllast December—pandemic in progress—and has so far attracted 10,000+ customers.

Gen Z especially is looking to do more than shop. “[Younger consumers] are so focused on entertainment and anything around gamification. That’s what’s important to them,” Alvarez & Marsal Consumer and Retail Group’s Kristin Kohler Burrows told us.

Role reversal: Fortnite creator Epic Games recently bought a floundering mall for $95 million to develop into its new HQ.—JG