Rise of Fearless, an African-owned mobile game inspired by Ethiopia’s victory at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, has secured USD 1 million, or about KES 130 million, from Epic Edges Capital. Announced on 3rd November 2026, the investment will pay for development, recruitment and infrastructure, alongside marketing and work to grow the game’s player community.
The game launched in 2025 and belongs to the battle royale genre: players search for weapons and supplies, fight within a shrinking safe area and try to be the last survivor. Its store description places those matches in African environments, while the company says its characters, hairstyles and clothing draw on African identities. Founder Kanessa Muluneh wants that world to reach players internationally while retaining African creative and commercial ownership.
The company says Rise of Fearless has passed 15,000 downloads, with its largest player communities in Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. That is a cumulative download figure; the announcement gives no count of people who return to play regularly. Google Play separately displays a 5,000-plus download band for Android, which cannot establish the combined total across both mobile platforms.
Muluneh has separately outlined a one-year target of 100,000 active players and substantial technical improvements. Reaching that target means attracting people who keep playing, as well as getting new installations. The starting download count and the active-player target measure different things, so they cannot establish a reliable growth multiple.
What Epic Edges is funding
The investment uses a Simple Agreement for Future Equity, or SAFE. Broadly, this is a contract giving an investor rights to shares later in exchange for funding now. The announcement does not disclose the valuation or the terms that would determine Epic Edges’ eventual ownership, so the funding amount alone cannot tell us how much of the business it is acquiring.
Four international gaming businesses are joining the effort. Miniboss Solutions will work on publishing and marketing. IDG Intelligence will supply market research and strategic advice, while Trick Question Studios will handle franchise development and creative direction. Spectra Entertainment will contribute game development and art expertise. These are the roles described in the funding announcement; their involvement should not be read as an investment by their executives’ former employers.
There is also funding history to distinguish from the new deal. In April 2025, Rise of Fearless was seeking USD 700,000, or about KES 91 million. Muluneh has since said the company moved away from that target and continued funding itself while seeking a suitable investor. The earlier target should therefore not be added to this investment as money raised.
What Kenyan players can download now
Rise of Fearless is listed free on Kenya’s App Store, but check the compatibility details before setting aside data for a download. The listing gives a size of 850.8MB and requires iOS 26.0 or later on an iPhone, or iPadOS 26.0 or later on an iPad. An older device that cannot run those operating systems will not meet the listed requirement.
The Kenya listing shows version 1.6, dated 18th June 2026, while Google Play dates its latest update to 18th June 2026. The published update notes mention changes to lobby waiting time, automatic collection of nearby items and bug fixes. Those notes describe an existing release; the new investment does not establish that another upgrade is ready to install.
The announcement gives no timetable for the funded improvements or details of Kenyan servers or local payment support. A storefront listing also cannot tell you how quickly a match will connect or how it will run on your phone. We have not tested the game or assessed its performance in matches.
The business model still needs clarification
The company’s ambition extends to owning the intellectual property, the rights to the game’s characters, stories and other original creative work. Retaining those rights would let it build on its own world as the audience grows. Muluneh also wants international specialists to help develop African talent, and identifies reliable servers and cross-border payments as problems the expansion should help address.
Muluneh says advertising currently brings in revenue, but she has delayed a broader monetisation push while working on gameplay and audience growth. That leaves the business with work to do on how a larger audience will pay for continued development.
Payments already shape how entertainment businesses reach African audiences. Back in 2024, we covered Carry1st’s work to make Audiomack subscriptions payable through local payment methods, including M-Pesa in Kenya. That is useful context for the infrastructure Rise of Fearless wants to improve, though this announcement names no payment integration of its own.
One earlier ambition also needs clarification. The game’s investor website still promotes blockchain-based assets and play-to-earn plans, under which players could receive digital tokens through gameplay. The new funding announcement does not explain the status of those plans. They should not be treated as a confirmed earning opportunity for players.
The investment gives Rise of Fearless resources to improve an existing game and reach a larger audience. For players, the useful result will be improvements they can experience in matches. For the business, the next test is whether those improvements turn its initial downloads into a returning audience large enough to support its ambition for an African-owned franchise.
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