The Techee

After sealing a deal to buy the UK-based game developer Codemasters in December, the American gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) is back with another big acquisition, this time Glu Mobile , a publicly-traded mobile games developer that's behind popular titles like Covet Fashion and Design Home .  EA will pay $12.50 per share for Glu Mobile, summing up to $2.1 billion in total. Combined with Glu's current cash balance of $364 million, the deal sums up to $2.4 billion. EA's acquisition price represents a 36% premium to Glu's closing share price on Friday, the 5th of February 2020. With Glu, EA will be getting a mobile gaming powerhouse with more than 100 million monthly active players across its games. Combined, EA's and Glu's mobile games will have produced $1.3 billion in bookings over the last 12 months. Glu has a team of 800 employees that'll join EA following the completion of its acquisition. 500 of its employees are developers, a significant talent bas

Nexters Global, a Cyprus-based developer of mobile games whose flagship title is the action-RPG game Hero Wars , is the latest company to seal a deal to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It's announced  that it's reached a deal to merge with Kismet Acquisition One Corp (Nasdaq: KSMTU), a SPAC led by the Russian tycoon Ivan Tavrin. The merger with  Kismet Acquisition One Corp will result in Nexters becoming publicly-traded on the  Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker "GEDV". It's a deal that'll split $300 million equally between Nexters and some of its shareholders who will be cashing out. The $300 million consists of $250 million raised by Kismet Acquisition in its IPO and an additional $50 million from the SPAC's sponsor, Kismet Capital Group. The merger deal values Nexters at $1.9 billion. Nexters is an 11-year-old mobile game developer that was founded in Russia as one of the pioneers of social and mob

You should know Amazon as the tech giant that has its hands dipped in figuratively everything. With a major and mammoth e-commerce business, the company also has big operations in other areas such as movie streaming (Prime Video), game streaming (Twitch), online pharmacy (PillPack), grocery delivery (Amazon Fresh), autonomous driving (Zoox) and the likes. Amazon is a stand-out business for the fact that it's seen success in many areas. The company constantly pours billions of dollars into expansion efforts and has seen its bets reap good fruits over the years. Even with success in many areas, it appears that there's one place Amazon has had much trouble in - the development of video games. A recent report from Bloomberg  shed light on the company's troubles in the video game sector, despite spending up to roughly $500 million annually on its gaming efforts. To develop games, Amazon has spent big and hired a handful of stars in the game development sector. Its dedicated divi

Jagex, a British gaming studio and publisher that's best known for its  RuneScape  MMORPG game, has been sold to the American private equity firm The Carlyle Group, a press statement from the firm indicates. While the price of the sale wasn't officially disclosed, a report from The Daily Telegraph pegs the deal at $530 million+. A Jagex acquisition is a landmark one for The Carlyle Group, a well-known and major private equity firm but one that isn't known for dabbling in the gaming sector. It's in fact the first gaming studio that  The Carlyle Group has ever acquired. The Carlyle Group is a major investor in technology companies globally and has thus continued its streak with the acquisition of a major British gaming studio. Jagex in this case  is a studio with a very popular game, RuneScape, which it claims has almost 300 million player accounts and has achieved over $1 billion in lifetime revenue. Jagex employs more than 450 people in the UK. Its reported acquisitio

After having filed to go public last year, the gaming company Roblox appears to still be tapping the private markets for funding and has announced  that it's raised $520 million in new funding at a share price that places its valuation at $29.5 billion.  The new round was led by the investment firms Altimeter Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group, with participation from the likes of Warner Music Group and the Investment Group of Santa Barbara. With the funding raised, Roblox says that it'll now hold a direct listing on the public markets and won't raise any further funding from its public market debut.  Roblox's new funding round seems to be a very strategic play, given that last year, the company postponed its planned public listing  to adjust its pricing strategy after seeing massive first-day pops of companies like Airbnb and DoorDash.  Now, the $520 million investment at a roughly $30 billion valuation represents the amount of money that Roblox would have raised o

Morgan Stanley, the well-known investment bank and financial services firm, is betting big on Skillz, a mobile gaming company that recently debuted on the public markets by the way of a reverse merger with a blank-check firm.  On the 9th of December, 2020, just a few days before Skillz completed its merger with the blank-check firm Flying Eagle Acquisition Corp, Morgan Stanley submitted a filing to the SEC that indicated it held an 18.8% stake in Flying Eagle.  With Skillz having completed its merger with Flying Eagle on Friday, Morgan Stanley's stake in the blank-check firm has been converted into Skillz stock and made it a major investor in the mobile gaming company. Skillz enjoyed a stellar debut that saw it soar high on its first day of trading. Now, the company trades at $20.92 per share with a market cap of over $7 billion. It seems that Morgan Stanley has found something very attractive in Skillz and thus secured a large stake in the company ahead of its debut. Skillz is

The popular chat service Discord has said that it's raised a fresh funding round of $100 million led by the investment firm Greenoaks Capital, which was already a previous investor in the company.  The new round brings the total amount of funding Discord has raised to nearly $500 million and is said  to have doubled Discord's valuation from $3.5 billion from a previous round now to $7 billion. The fresh round comes in a year in which Discord has pulled in a high number of users as a Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the need for virtual communications both from computer and mobile gamers, its main area of familiarity, and broader mainstream users. Discord initially started and rose to fame as a chat service for gamers. Now, it's sought to appeal to users outside the field of gaming and earlier this year poached a marketing executive from the apparel company Nike to oversee its expansion beyond gaming in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. According to a report from the Wall S

On the cusp of a soon public listing , the gaming company Roblox says it's acquired Loom.ai, a San Francisco-based startup that provides real-time facial animation technology for 3D avatars. The financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. Loom.ai was founded in 2016 and has since that time raised some $5.9 million in venture funding from investors including Samsung, DHVC, and Dentsu Ventures. The San Francisco-based company was founded by veterans from the film companies DreamWorks and Lucasfilm. Roblox says it'll integrate Loom.ai's tech into its service to enable Roblox players to create enhanced 3D avatars. “We’re thrilled to join forces with Roblox to bring real-time facial expressions to the 36 million Roblox avatars playing every day in the metaverse,” said Mahesh Ramasubramanian, co-founder of Loom.ai, in a press statement . Both Roblox and Loom.ai are based in San Francisco so there'll likely be not much physical operational changes resulting from

Not long ago, the American gaming company Take-Two Interactive reached a deal to acquire the publicly-traded UK-based gaming company Codemasters for about $1 billion, precisely $994 million.  Take-Two had already announced an agreement with Codemasters' board for an acquisition but now appears to have been outplayed by its rival Electronic Arts (EA), which has offered a higher $1.2 billion bid for Codemasters and  announced a formal agreement with the UK-based gaming company's board. Outbidding Take-Two's offer by $200 million, EA expects its acquisition of Codemasters to be completed in the first quarter of next year.  Codemasters is a publicly-traded UK gaming company famous for its sports and racing games, including the Formula One gaming franchise. It's set to combine with EA, which is famous for many games including the Need for Speed franchise as well as sports games including the FIFA , NHL, and Madden NFL series. With Codemasters, EA will bolster its strong

The Swedish digital entertainment company Modern Times Group, best-known by its initials MTG, has reached a deal to acquire the London-based mobile game developer Hutch Games in a $375 million deal, split into a $275 million upfront payment and potential earnouts of up to $100 million. The acquisition will give MTG a mobile game studio with popular titles like Rebel Racing ,  F1 Manager , and Top Drives . The price that it's paying upfront sums up to nearly five times Hutch's $56.3 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2020, wherein during that same period, the game developer posted $14 million in earnings (net income) before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). Notably, Hutch's revenue for the first nine months of 2020 grew 158% over the past year. The London-based company has a pipeline of new titles planned for launch in 2021 and 2022. Hutch currently has 100+ staff who'll join MTG upon completion of its sale. As noted in a press stateme

Roblox, the gaming company that filed to go public last month and was expected to debut on the public markets before this year runs out, will now delay its IPO till next year, citing difficulties in pricing its shares given the recent upsized surges of the newly-minted public companies Airbnb and DoorDash , the Wall Street Journal reports . According to the Journal, Roblox has sent out a memo to employees that notes its public offering will be delayed till next year to cater to adjustments. It seems that the recent upsized surges of companies like Airbnb and DoorDash from their market debut prices have led Roblox to rethink its own pricing and possibly price its shares higher than intended. For reference, Airbnb debuted at $68 per share and now trades at around $139, giving it a market cap of $97 billion. Likewise, DoorDash debuted at $102 per share and now trades at $175, giving it a market cap of $65 billion. Both companies' recent pops from their market debut prices have rais

  Wizard Games, a Chinese game development studio that's best known for its hit title "Battle Teams", has announced that it's raised "a substantial investment" from the Chinese gaming giant Tencent as it aims to release a sequel to its hit gaming title named "Battle Teams 2" next year.  Tencent's investment in Wizard Games amounts to 'several hundred million Chinese RMB', a press release notes, whereas Wizard Games also notes of securing "multiple post-investment resources" from Tencent, likely referring to partnerships with the Chinese gaming giant. Wizard Games is based out of Hangzhou, China where it was founded in 2010. The company is best known for developing "Battle Teams", a highly popular shooter title in China that it claims has over half-a-billion players worldwide. Tencent investing in Wizard Games is strategic, just like the Chinese tech giant's investments in many other gaming companies globally. Wi

Microsoft has announced that it's acquired Smash.gg, a platform for hosting esports events and tournaments that was founded in 2015. Microsoft says it'll keep Smash.gg as an independent platform for esports tournament organizers. The financial terms of Microsoft's acquisition weren't disclosed, whereas Smash.gg had raised some $14 million in venture funding before its just-announced acquisition. The esports startup's backers include Spark Capital, Accel, Lowercase Capital, Caffeinated Capital, and Horizon Ventures. Smash.gg marks one of Microsoft's notable esports acquisitions in recent years. The software giant had previously acquired the game streaming service Beam in 2016 and rebranded it as Mixer but ended up shutting it down this year after it failed to keep up with other competitors such as Amazon's Twitch. As Microsoft has said Smash.gg will remain independent, it'll likely exist as a standalone platform for more years to come. It's unclear w

The popular VoIP and instant messaging platform Discord is closing a new round of funding that would place its valuation at up to $7 billion, TechCrunch reports , whereas Discord closed a $100 million round that valued it at $3.5 billion just in June.  Discord has seen a high usage uptick as a Covid-19 pandemic has driven up the adoption of virtual social networking services. The company says its number of monthly active users has almost doubled to 120 million this year and that it's seeing as much as 800,000 downloads a day. Already, Discord is heavily funded with some $379 million in funding raised so far. The company's investors include many well-known names such as the Chinese gaming giant Tencent and venture capital firms Index Ventures, IVP, Spark Capital, and FirstMark. A valuation of $7 billion would be impressive for Discord and make it one of the most valuable startups ever to emerge from the virtual communications and social networking sector. Discord as a company

Recently, the gaming company Roblox filed to go public , seeking to do so 13 years after launching, and some $336 million in venture funding raised over the years. Roblox is a gaming platform made primarily for kids in which they can create their own games or play those created by others.  The company reports having about 31 million daily active users and some 345,000 developers who have monetized their Roblox games. In this article, we dig into Roblox's S-1 filing with the US Securities and Exchanges Commission to analyze its financial performance over the years as well as its business history. Revenue In 2019, Roblox pulled in $488.2 million in revenue and reported a net loss of $86 million in the same year. In the year before that (2018), the company pulled in $312.8 million in revenue and reported a net loss of $97 million. For the nine months in this year (2020) from January to September, Roblox pulled in $588.7 million in revenue, which is a record for the company. It repor

After first confidentially filing for a public offering in October, the gaming company Roblox has now released a public filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), seeking to go public 14 years after its launch and some $336 million in funding raised over the years. Privately, Roblox is valued at $4 billion by investors and has been reported to be targeting a higher valuation of up to $8 billion on the public markets. Roblox's S-1 filing shows $488.2 million in 2019 revenue and a net loss of $86 million in the same year. In the previous year, the company posted a $97.2 million loss on $312.7 million in revenue. This very year has been good for Roblox, with its revenue soaring to $588.7 million in the nine months leading ended September, compared to roughly $350 million in the same period last year. The company's loss also soared, however, from $46.3 million to $203.2 million in the nine months of this year leading to September. Founded in 2004 and launche

Ahead of its planned reverse merger with blank-check firm Flying Eagle Acquisition Corp, gaming company Skillz has posted its first financial results ever, giving a peek into the still-private company's finances. Skillz reports $60 million in revenue in the third quarter of this year, up 92% year-over-year, and $162 million in the nine months leading up to September, up 91% compared to the previous year. Skillz reports a net loss of $42.9 million in the third quarter, compared to $5 million in the previous year. For the nine months leading to September, the company posted a net loss of $78.5 million, compared to $14.9 million in the previous year. Skillz is a mobile gaming platform that lets gamers compete with each other. It enables game developers to provide the esports experience for their players and has helped build several multi-million dollar franchises with social competition. Skillz touts having seen high rates of revenue growth both before and in the aftermath of the cor

John Riccitiello, Chief Executive Officer, Unity.  Photo credit:  TechCrunch , licensed under  CC BY 2.0  After going public in September, gaming company Unity has posted its first financial results as a public company, showing $200.8 million in revenue and $141.7 million in losses in the third quarter of this year. Revenue for the quarter grew 53% year-over-year while losses shot up more than 200% year-over-year. The majority of the loss spurred from a one-time charge due to stock compensation and the donation of 750,000 units of shares worth over $80 million to a charitable fund. During the quarter, Unity powered some of the biggest gaming hits including Mediatonic’s Fall Guys which has sold over 10 million copies on the PC, and  Genshin Impact , a free-to-play mobile game that saw over 10 million downloads on its first day of release.  During the quarter, Unity boosted the number of customers that each generate more than $100,000 in annual revenue to 739, compared to 553 in the sam

  "CMRDirt_che_02_res"   by  bdgamers  is licensed under  CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Gaming company Take-Two Interactive has moved to acquire British video game developer Codemasters in a deal worth nearly $1 billion. Take-Two has proposed a cash-and-stock offer that sums up to 739.2 million pounds ($973.6 million) to acquire Codemasters, a publicly-traded company that's seen its stock rise nearly 70% in this year. Take-Two has penned its acquisition offer but hasn't yet reached a formal agreement with Codemasters. Codemasters has to go through a shareholder vote to see Take-Two's deal pass through. The company's board says it plans to unanimously recommend acceptance of Take-Two's offer to its shareholders, with a window open until the 4th of December, 2020 for Take-Two to reach a final deal. Codemasters is a major British video game developer and publisher that's known for its popular Colin McRae and official Formula 1 racing games. The company has benefitted f

  Kati Levoranta, CEO, Rovio. Photo credit:  Friends of Europe ,  licensed under  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Rovio, the Finnish video game developer best known for its Angry Birds franchise, has reported a 138% year-over-year jump third-quarter adjusted operating profit, coming at €12.8 million ($15.1 million) from €5.4 million ($6.3 million) a year earlier. Rovio was buoyed by lower marketing costs and stable revenue during the quarter. Rovio has updated its full-year outlook, stating that it expects its adjusted operating profit margin to “improve significantly” from last year’s 6.3%. Revenue for the year is expected to be slightly lower than last year’s €289.1 million ($337.5 million). Rovio continues to be held up by its most popular franchise, with revenue from the company's biggest game  Angry Birds 2 growing annually.  Small Town Murders , its newest game which was released in June this year is gaining momentum and has been localized to 10 new languages. This year would mark the last