Holly Liu is an American businesswoman and

venture capitalist Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

. She is the co-founder of the mobile gaming company

Kabam Kabam (formerly Watercooler, Inc.) is a Canadian video game developer and publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, with offices in Montreal, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. The company develops and publishes massively multipl ...

. She is currently Non-Executive Director and Strategic Adviser to

Animoca Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd. is a Hong Kong–based game software company and venture capital company co-founded in 2014 by Yat Siu and David Kim. The company initially focused on developing mobile games, then shifted to blockchain gaming a ...

's board of directors.

Education

She studied at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

where she earned her master’s degree in Information Management and Systems. She also studied at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Communications and East Asian Studies.

Career

Liu is the co-founded mobile gaming company

in 2006; maker of the games: ''

Kingdoms of Camelot ''Kingdoms of Camelot'' is a massively multiplayer online game, massively multiplayer online real-time strategy browser game created by the studio Kabam when it was named Watercooler Inc. It went into beta on November 2, 2009 and was released on ...

'', '' The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth'', and ''

Marvel Contest of Champions ''Marvel Contest of Champions'' is a 2014 fighting video game developed and published by Kabam. It was released on December 10, 2014, for iOS and Android. The fighting game is primarily set in the Marvel Universe. The game is strongly based o ...

''. She was lead designer of their flagship game

, which grossed over $250 million in just four years. Liu was instrumental in growing the company’s annual revenue from zero to $400m. She was also the founding mobile designer for the game extension ''Battle for the North'', which made ''Kingdoms of Camelot'' the highest-grossing app for iPhone and iPad in 2012. In January 2017, the majority of

’s assets were acquired by

Netmarble Netmarble Corp. (Korean: 넷마블 주식회사) is a South Korean game developer and publisher, which was founded in 2000 by Bang Jun-hyuk. History Netmarble has its origins in the video game developer Ipopsoft (). Around the late 1990s, that ...

, South Korea’s largest mobile gaming company. Following her exit from Kabam, Liu took on a role as a visiting partner at

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

, an accelerator providing seeded funding to nearly 2,000 startups with a combined value of over $80 billion. In June 2018 she was appointed Non-Executive Director and Strategic Adviser to

's board of directors. In 2019 Liu worked as an advisor on The Sandbox, a decentralized gaming platform. She is currently a member on the advisory board at

University of California, Berkeley School of Information The University of California, Berkeley School of Information (sometimes abbreviated as Berkeley I School) is a graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California. The school was established in 1 ...

Recognition

She has been named one of

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming”,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

’ “12 Women in Gaming to Watch.” and Forbes - "10 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch from Google Ventures' Portfolio Companies". She was also named by Inc as a Top 10 female founder unicorn. In 2018, she received the Technology Entrepreneurship Abie Award at the

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women and non-binary technologi ...

. She was also featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Holly Living people 21st-century American businesspeople American technology chief executives American technology company founders American venture capitalists American women investors Women venture capitalists American video game designers American video game programmers American video game producers American women chief executives American women company founders American company founders University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni Y Combinator people Year of birth missing (living people) American women video game designers 21st-century American businesswomen