Swedish gaming agency MTG acquires India’s PlaySimple for $360 million – TechCrunch
Swedish gaming large Fashionable Instances Group (MTG) has acquired Indian startup PlaySimple for not less than $360 million, the 2 companies stated Friday.
MTG stated it should pay 77{69439eabc38bbe67fb47fc503d1b0f790fcef507f9cafca8a4ef4fbfe163a7c5} of the acquisition sum to Indian recreation developer and writer in money and the remainder in firm shares. There’s additionally one other $150 million reward put apart if sure undisclosed efficiency metrics are hit, the 2 companies stated.
Friday’s deal marks one of many largest exits within the Indian startup ecosystem. PlaySimple had raised $4 million Collection A at a valuation of about $16 million from Elevation Capital and Chiratae Ventures in 2016. (The startup, which started its journey in Bangalore, raised simply $4.5 million in complete from exterior traders.)
And it’s clear why: the revenues of PlaySimple — which operates 9 phrase video games together with “Each day Themed Crossword,” “Phrase Journey,” “Phrase Jam,” and “Phrase Wars” — grew by 144{69439eabc38bbe67fb47fc503d1b0f790fcef507f9cafca8a4ef4fbfe163a7c5} y-o-y to $83 million final 12 months and it was on monitor to hit over $60 million income within the first half of 2021.
“We’re very happy with the video games we’ve developed through the years, and of the infrastructure and scale that we’ve achieved with our crew,” stated PlaySimple co-founders and administration crew members — Siddhanth Jain, Suraj Nalin and Preeti Reddy — in a joint assertion.
“As we be part of the MTG household, we sit up for leveraging our proprietary know-how throughout MTG’s gaming portfolio, increasing into the European market, investing in cutting-edge know-how and constructing thrilling new video games.”
PlaySimple, which says its free-to-play video games have amassed over 75 million installs and preserve almost 2 million every day energetic customers, plans to launch a lot of video games later this 12 months and in addition develop into the cardboard video games style.
“PlaySimple is a quickly rising and extremely worthwhile video games studio that rapidly has established itself as one of many main international builders of free-to-play phrase video games, an thrilling new style for MTG,” stated Maria Redin, MTG Group President and CEO, stated in a press release.
The Stockholm-headquartered agency, which has additionally acquired Hutch and Ninja Kiwi in recent times, stated PlaySimple will assist it construct a diversified gaming vertical. “Scaling and diversifying the GamingCo [an MTG subsidiary] helps to speed up the operational efficiency whereas on the similar time making a extra secure enterprise,” the agency stated.
