ModRetro, the retro gaming startup founded by Palmer Luckey, reportedly targets a $1B valuation in a new funding round

ModRetro, the retro gaming startup founded by Palmer Luckey, is in talks to raise fresh funding at a $1 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times.

The company launched its first product in 2024, a Game Boy-style handheld device known as the Chromatic. The Verge’s Sean Hollister said it “might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made,” but also said it was difficult to separate the device from Luckey’s reputation as the founder of defence tech startup Anduril Industries.

“If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?” Hollister asked.

Luckey said last year that he had been trying to build a Game Boy-inspired device “off and on as a hobby for almost seventeen years now” and described the Chromatic as the product of “hundreds of irrational decisions” that made it “an uncompromisingly authentic celebration of everything that made the console special.”

The Financial Times reports that ModRetro is also working on other devices, including one designed to recreate the Nintendo 64.

At the same time, the Trump administration appears to have embraced Luckey’s vision for autonomous weapons, with Anduril reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round at a $60 billion valuation.