ModRetro Eyes $1B Valuation
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- ModRetro is in talks to raise funding at a $1 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times.
- The company's first product, the Chromatic — a Game Boy-style handheld — launched in 2024, and The Verge's Sean Hollister said it "might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made."
- Luckey said he'd been working on a Game Boy-inspired device "off and on as a hobby for almost seventeen years" and described the Chromatic as the result of "hundreds of irrational decisions" yielding an "uncompromisingly authentic celebration."
- Hollister captured the defense-tech awkwardness of the pitch, asking: "If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?"
- ModRetro is developing additional devices, including one designed to replicate the Nintendo 64.
- Anduril Industries, Luckey's defense tech company, is separately in talks to raise at a $60 billion valuation, while the Trump administration has reportedly embraced Luckey's vision for autonomous weapons.
Why it matters: A $1B valuation for a startup whose only shipped product is a 2024 Game Boy homage would be notable on its own; that the round comes from the founder of a defense company simultaneously raising at $60B makes it hard to separate ModRetro's fundraising from the broader Luckey story, exactly the tension Hollister's Lockheed Martin line flags.
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