New studios emerge, and Pokémon Sleep hits $150m | Week in Views
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The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
[staff id=”100175″ name=”Craig Chapple”]
Finnish startup Seven Stars secures seed round to build “next-gen” puzzle games
I don’t want to underplay the state of the games industry: it remains a very challenging time for studios and the talented teams and individuals that make up the sector.
There are still regular news of layoffs impacting developers around the world. Take this week’s Warner Bros.’ studio closures as just one example.
But there are some good news stories emerging too. We reported this week that Finnish startup Seven Stars has secured seed round funding from investors and the EU to build the “next generation of puzzle games”.
Meanwhile, we’ve been reporting a number of other investment stories over the past month. Turkish studio Surpass Games secured $1.5m, Meep Corp raised £500,000, Little Umbrella landed $2m in funding, Playable Factory scored strategic investment from Ludus Ventures, and Good Job Games raised $15m at a valuation of over $100m.
On top of that at the end of last year companies like Aonic received €152 million investment to fuel M&A, Vgames raised $142m to back global game studios, and Play Ventures secured $140m to support early-stage game studios.
But what does the data say? Drake Star Partners reported 711 private placement deals raising $4.8 billion in total in 2024, a 30% increase year-over-year. However, the number of deals was 8% lower compared to 2023.
Konvoy Ventures also said private marketing funding in gaming grew 58% from 2023 to 2024, driven by the Disney and Epic deal. However, VC saw the lowest amount of investment in five+ years in Q4, with the majority of the decline coming from growth-stage funding.
Drake Star Partners said it had a “very positive outlook of the gaming and tech market in 2025 with strategic consolidations, private equity interest, and an evolving regulatory landscape shaping deal activity”.
It added: “With over $1.8bn in new capital raised by funds in 2024, signaling renewed investor interest, we anticipate a strong pipeline of seed and early-stage financings, along with select mid-to-latestage rounds.”
Clearly challenging times remain, but some new studios are breaking through. We’ll see if Drake Star Partners’ positive outlook rings true in the months ahead, sparking more good news stories for the industry.
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[staff id=”100270″ name=”Aaron Astle”]
Pokémon Sleep hits $150m mark despite slowdown since first anniversary
Just in time for Pokémon Day, sleep-tracking app Pokémon Sleep napped its way to $150 million in gross player spending as perhaps the series’ quietest mobile hit.
According to AppMagic data, spending has slowed down somewhat over this past year and a half but players have far from entirely dozed off. After making $56.3m in its first six months, the app made another $46.4m by its first anniversary and $41.5m more in the six months after.
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Those figures combined make Pokémon Sleep the fourth-biggest mobile app in the franchise, carried by its Japanese player base. Slowly but surely, it’s gaining ground on DeNA’s Pokémon Masters too.
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