Indie Fund

Members of the Indie Game organization have identified difficulties for indie developers to be able to fund their projects. Ron Carmel noted that there are typically two ways that this funding can occur: either through the developers providing their own money to initiate the project, or by signing deals with publishers for funding in exchange for part of the game's revenues being given back to the publisher. Neither of these choices were considered optimal for an aspiring developer, according to Carmel.

In 2008, several self-published indie games, including Audiosurf, Braid, Castle Crashers, and World of Goo were released to both strong critical reception and large sales. All of these games were initially funded by their respective studios, and demonstrated that investment in independent games could be profitable. With the following years also providing more commercially successful games, the Indie Fund group decided to create the fund, using the profits from these games, as to aid the next iteration of indie games.

At the 2011 Game Developers Conference, the Indie Fund announced the first three games that it had already funded Q.U.B.E. by Toxic Games (which would later be the first Indie Fund game to be released in December 2011), Monaco by Pocketwatch Games, and Shadow Physics by Scott Anderson and Steve Swink. The Indie Fund has also announced funding for one other yet-to-be-named titles from Double Fine Productions. The Indie Fund also provided $50,000 in funding for the development of That Dragon, Cancer.