BD Lead, Games Partnerships

Origin Lab; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Origin Lab is seeking a senior business development leader to own the games supply side, licensing, and revenue strategy. You will close licensing deals with studios, publishers, and rights holders, guiding terms and economics through leadership and counsel.

You’ll align supply with buyer demand and build ecosystem presence at industry events. Ideal candidates have deep games industry relationships, a track record closing long-cycle licenses, and the ability to explain AI training data concepts

Qualifications

• 8+ years in business development, partnerships, or licensing in games or gaming-adjacent tech.
• Track record closing IP/content licensing deals with long cycles and multiple stakeholders.
• Existing relationships with decision-makers at studios and publishers.
• Fluency in how game rights work: IP ownership, engines, middleware, UGC, platform terms.
• Ability translating AI training data concepts to game executives and leaders.

Responsibilities

• Source, negotiate, and close licensing deals with game studios, publishers, and rights holders.
• Work on licensing terms, exclusivity, and economics; ensure terms withstand due diligence.
• Partner with data team on supply planning to meet buyer demand.
• Maintain post-deal relationships: renewals, expansions, new titles.
• Be a visible industry ambassador at events and platform relationships.

Skills

Business development

Negotiation

Relationship building

Strategic thinking

Communication

Job description

Origin Lab builds the premium data layer for Artificial World Intelligence. We capture and structure rights-cleared multimodal datasets from video games, 3D environments, and interactive media for the companies building world models, embodied AI, and multimodal foundation models. We are backed by Lightspeed Ventures, SV Angel and other tier 1 investors.

We have live customer revenue, a proprietary capture and enrichment platform, exclusive partnerships and a founding team with deep roots in gaming (Twitch/Amazon) and AI/ML.

The Role

You own the supply side of Origin Lab: the games. Reporting to the CEO, you sign the studios, publishers, and rights holders whose titles we capture, structure, and license as training data, turning a partner's catalog into recurring revenue while they keep full control of their IP. You sit across the table from studio CEOs, publisher BD and licensing heads, and the people who decide what happens to some of the most valuable IP in entertainment.

This is a gaming seat first. The right person has spent years closing publisher and studio deals, knows the people behind the big catalogs, and can take a protective IP owner from first meeting to signed license. You can explain what AI training data is and why game worlds are uniquely built to produce it, in language studio leadership trusts. If you know the games business and want to build its bridge to AI, there is not a better seat in the industry.

What You Own

• Partnership Pipeline. Source, negotiate, and close licensing deals with game studios, publishers, and rights holders. Own the full cycle from first conversation to signature.
• Deal Structure. Work with leadership and counsel on licensing terms, exclusivity, and economics. Rights-cleared is the product; the terms have to hold up to a lab's diligence.
• Supply Strategy. Partner with our data team to target the right games. Buyers want specific things (driving, combat, physics, multi-agent play) and you keep our supply ahead of their demand.
• Partner Success. Keep studios happy after the deal closes: renewals, expansions, new titles. Turn one game into a portfolio relationship.
• Ecosystem Presence. Be a face of Origin Lab in gaming: GDC, Gamescom, publisher summits, platform relationships.

Required Experience

• 8+ years in business development, partnerships, or licensing in games: at a publisher, platform, studio, or gaming-adjacent technology company.
• Track record closing complex IP or content licensing deals with long cycles and multiple stakeholders, including legal and executive sign-off.
• Existing relationships with the decision-makers at studios and publishers. You can open doors from day one.
• Working fluency in how game rights actually work: IP ownership, engine and middleware layers, UGC and mods, platform terms. You can tell a general counsel exactly what we capture and what we never touch.
• Comfort translating AI to game executives: what training data is, why their game matters to it, and why licensed beats scraped. You do not need to be an ML person; you need to make ML legible to a rightfully cautious CEO.

Nice to Have

• Experience with content or data licensing involving AI companies, from either side of the table.
• Publisher relationships beyond the US; especially in North & South America, and Asia.
• Familiarity with world models, embodied AI, or video generation as training data categories.
• A player yourself, across genres and platforms.