Aaron Isaksen

Dr. Aaron Isaksen is a technologist, entrepreneur, and angel investor who sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and indie game development. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from New York University (2017), where his dissertation focused on AI techniques for automated interactive software design under Professor Andy Nealen at the Game Innovation Lab. He also holds degrees from MIT and UC Berkeley. With over 25 years of software engineering experience, Isaksen has built a career spanning mobile applications, game development, AI/ML research, and cybersecurity, accumulating patents and publications across computer vision, embedded systems, generative AI, and natural language processing.

In 2003, Isaksen founded AppAbove, Inc., a developer and publisher of mobile educational, productivity, music, and entertainment applications, serving as President and CEO until 2017. After completing his PhD, he transitioned into enterprise AI, joining ASAPP as Senior Director of Machine Learning Engineering and NYC Technical Site Lead, where he led an international AI/ML R&D team building state-of-the-art neural networks and NLP models. He subsequently joined Palo Alto Networks, where he now serves as Vice President of AI Research & Engineering within the Cortex division, leading the Foundational AI Research group that advances AI capabilities in cybersecurity.

On the investment side, Isaksen is a founding partner of the Indie Fund, established in 2010 alongside notable indie game creators Jonathan Blow (Braid), Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler (World of Goo), Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany), Nathan Vella (Capy Games), and Matthew Wegner (Flashbang Studios). He also serves as Chairman of IndieBox, an Orlando-based company specializing in physical product development and e-commerce services for indie game developers, and sat on the Advisory Board of Fig, a community-driven publishing and crowd-funding platform for video games.

Isaksen's angel investing is concentrated in the indie gaming ecosystem, channeled primarily through the Indie Fund. The fund's thesis centers on supporting the growth of games as an artistic and commercial medium by helping independent developers achieve and maintain financial independence, free from the constraints of traditional publisher deals. The Indie Fund provides development funding to promising indie game projects, with developers repaying the investment plus a modest revenue share over three years upon release. This model aligns financial incentives while preserving creative independence for developers. Isaksen's technical background in AI and game design research gives him a distinctive analytical lens for evaluating game concepts and studio potential.

• Sectors: Indie games, interactive entertainment, game development tools
• Stage: Seed / Early-stage (pre-release game funding)
• Geography: Global (indie game developers worldwide)