Show Me The Money: Aonic receives €152m, Vgames lands $142m, and Stillfront secures $227m in December
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The mobile games industry is fast-paced and it’s easy to miss out on the big news.
To that end, we’ve put together a roundup of the big deals from the past month to help keep you on track on everything from mergers and acquisitions, investments, financing, partnerships and more.
Below you’ll find the key deals we reported from the past month, as well as other investment news.
You can learn more about M&A and investment trends at Pocket Gamer Connects. We’re heading to London on January 20th to 21st, San Francisco on March 17th to 18th, and Dubai on May 7th to 8th.
Head on over to the PGC website to book meetings with publishers and investors, network with the industry, and gain insights from expert speakers.
M&A
DoubleU acquires Turkish studio Paxie Games for up to $67m
Scopely acquires Perfect World’s Chengfeng Studio in $34.5m deal
Nazara subsidiary Nodwin acquires 93% stake in AFK gaming for $900,000
Sony becomes Kadokawa’s largest Shareholder with $318m investment
Zynga sells Chartboost to LoopMe
Build A Rocket Boy acquires UK developer PlayFusion
Reforged Studios acquires South Africa’s Yellow Lab Games
Nazara continues M&A push with Funky Monkeys and LearnTube investments
Tencent acquires majority stake in Wuthering Waves developer Kuro Games
Investor trends
We got Drake Star Partners managing partner Michael Metzger on the PocketGamer.biz Podcast to discuss investment trends that are set to dominate games industry M&A in 2025.
Check out the YouTube video below or listen to the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Investments
Ray Browser raises $6.5m to boost web-based gaming
Moon Beast Productions raises $4.5m to ‘revolutionise’ action RPGs
Databricks raises $10bn to bring company valuation to $62bn
Vgames raises $142m for third fund to back global game studios
Turkish developer Agave Games gets $18m funding
Aonic receives €152 million investment to fuel M&A
Beam Ventures launches in Abu Dhabi with $150m fund to support game studios
Cyprus-based studio Top App Games secures $10m funding
Fortnite UGC studio Creators Corp gets $2 million investment from Lumina
Playgama lands $3 million to simplify HTML5 game distribution
Acquiring and selling games: Trends and strategies in 2024
In this guest article, ZiMAD’s M&A manager Yana Vesnina shares insights on M&A strategies that have shaped 2024.
Financing
Stillfront Group secures $227m credit facility to extend financial flexibility
Partnerships
NEOM Media partners with Kwalee, Sandsoft, Tamatem and others to launch games publishing network
Pokémon GO partners with McDonald’s US to add PokéStops and Gyms at 13,500 locations
Kiddopia teams up with Moonbug to bring Little Angel characters to learning platform
Epic Games partners with Telefónica to pre-install Fortnite and the Epic Games Store on Android
EsportsXO partners with Abu Dhabi Gaming to open regional headquarters in the MENA region
Xsolla partners with StarNest to launch game development academy in Azerbaijan
Nazara and Lysto pen Letter of Intent to launch The Growth Protocol
