"Flight Unlimited" was self-published by Looking Glass Technologies. Their previous games had been developed for other video game publishers, and had generated $90 million total earnings for those companies. However, Ronald Rosenberg of "The Boston Globe" reported that Looking Glass was "no longer satisfied as a backroom player surviving on royalties". Doug Church later explained that the company wanted to self-publish in order to escape the "treadmill of waiting for advances", which would allow them to make long-term plans without needing to satisfy the immediate demands of a publisher. In late 1994, Looking Glass announced that venture capital investors, including Matrix Partners and Institutional Venture Partners, had provided the company with $3.8 million. The sum was intended to fund the development and self-publication of "Flight Unlimited". According to Michael Humphreys of Matrix Partners and Ruthann Quindlen of Institutional Venture Partners, the decision was partly influenced by the past success of the company's co-founders, Paul Neurath and Ned Lerner.