Funding and M&A
2. $1.5M → Takahouse (Saudi) raises from Impact46
3. Trivelta acquires Kerma Games, moving into proprietary content and entertainment IP → undisclosed
4. Piko Interactive acquires 7 Raven Studios (Thailand indie) → undisclosed
5. Hitai acquires Quell (fitness gaming studio) → undisclosed
6. 4399 takes a 22% stake in Guangzhou-based Zhuwei Network → undisclosed
7. SteamDB joins Nexus Mods both now under Chosen → undisclosed

UA Financing
8. $12M → Burlingame Studios secures non-dilutive UA financing from PvX Partners

New Ventures and Ecosystem
9. Ánima Games steps into video game development

3D asset generation just pulled $446M. Threat to studios, or their biggest cost saver?

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
Take CARe, CARtic

Other posts from last week
» unicorn is a vanity
» floor notes from gamescom2026

Stats from Pitchbook unicorn list (2026)
1. 256 companies have hit unicorn status of with 4 are from gaming (not studios) and 2 are from game-adjacent (AI)
2. 5.1B combined value from gaming, its the smallest sector

4 gaming companies are not game studios:
» Brave Group runs VTuber IP
» ModRetro is into selling retro consoles
» Odyssey is into building world models
» Shengshu is into building world models

2 gaming adjacent Unicorns from AI space:
» Meshy, AI that generates 3D assets
» General Intuition, AI that trains on gameplay video


Trends with public markets:
» Devolver listed in 2021 at 940M, now its worth about 45M. In action to delist from LSE. Its revenue grew 60% in H1 2026, but the market simply would not pay for it.
» EA just went private
» Delisting and going pvt is the trend.


Gaming unicorns are from either in AI or tooling space in 2026.

Craft business or the technology business? In 2026, capital only showed up for one of them.
Take CARe, CARtic
iCartic.com


Source: link to Pitchbook

Flew solo
124K steps
5 mixers in 4 days
2 portals, M2M and Gamescom
Ran 7km with Nathan, Layla and Newzoo
48 meets in lobbies, biz zones and mixers

My takeaways:
→YouTube Playables
→ Switch 2 connects
→ Publishing support and UA funds
→ Co-dev and porting, back on the table
→ Release window discusison after/how-long after GTA6 in Nov

LinkedIn outperformed both portals for me, which portal converted for you this Gamescom?

If we didn’t connect, DM me.

tCARe, CARtic P
/ iCartic.com

TL;DR

1. $1.5B+ → Alibaba / Lingxi Games

2. Up to $215M → Blacknut

3. $250M → Makers Fund IV

4. $400M → AppsFlyer credit facility

5. $27.1M → Delphi Interactive

6. $18M → W4 Games / Godot

7. $5.8M → Entity

8. $3M → Surge Games

9. $3M → EG7 / Cold Iron assets

10. $1M → GYLD

11. Up to $10M → Qiiwi UA facility

12. Studio capital → Magic Potion, Black Pony, Pretty Cool, FarBridge and Terrible Toybox

13. M&A → SOFTGAMES/Funday and Agis/Maze Theory

14. Independence → Compulsion Games exits Xbox

15. Indie ecosystem → CAA launches Frame1Games

Funding and M&A:

1. $1.5B+ → Alibaba is divesting its full stake in Lingxi Games to private equity firm Trustar Capital. Reuters reported Alibaba could receive more than $2B, while other reports put the deal value above $1.5B.

2. Up to $215M → French cloud gaming platform Blacknut receives strategic backing from Digital Alpha Advisors. The capital is aimed at product development, content, infrastructure and international expansion.

3. $27.1M → US games publisher Delphi Interactive raises capital from 13 accredited investors, disclosed through an SEC Form D.

4. $18M → W4 Games raises a Tencent-led Series B. The company plans to expand its international team and accelerate the commercial ecosystem around the open-source Godot Engine.

5. $5.8M → Dublin-based Entity raises seed funding to build a browser platform capable of delivering console-quality games through WebGPU and WebAssembly.

6. $3M → Türkiye-based Surge Games raises pre-seed funding led by Play Ventures to scale its AI-native approach to mobile puzzle game development.

7. $3M → Enad Global 7 closes its acquisition of the Aliens: Fireteam Elite back catalog plus publishing and development assets connected to Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2.

8. €2.2M → KAZIMI raises an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by Market One Capital to fight bot-generated noise in first-party mobile marketing data.

9. $1M → Australia-based GYLD raises an oversubscribed seed round led by Kameha Ventures.

The capital will help expand Critical Compass, GYLD’s proprietary games research platform. The system was previously used to identify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as a project with strong potential.

10. Magic Potion Games → undisclosed Series A from Square Enix, 1AM Gaming, 1Up Ventures and Konvoy Ventures.

The round comes as its Club Penguin-style social world Imagine Island exits beta after passing one million players organically.

11. Black Pony Immersive → milestone-based funding from an undisclosed publisher.

The studio was founded by Dishonored creative director Harvey Smith and fellow Arkane Austin veteran Ben Horne and has been operating quietly since 2025.

12. Pretty Cool Games → undisclosed investment from Coreblazer, Hypergryph’s investment arm.

The UK studio was founded by Human: Fall Flat veterans Sitara Shefta and Will Dudley and is developing an original physics-driven PC and console title.

13. FarBridge → undisclosed strategic investment from Enduring Games.

The funding will support development of Job Simulator: Human Relations and allowed FarBridge to cancel its Kickstarter and refund backers.

14. Terrible Toybox → undisclosed private investor funding for Thimbleweed Park 2.

Ron Gilbert opted for a private funding structure instead of crowdfunding or a traditional publishing agreement.

M&A and Independence:

15. SOFTGAMES acquires Funday Games’ complete Instant Games portfolio → undisclosed.

The transaction covers 19 titles across puzzle, arcade, trivia and creative games, including Chess Quest.

16. Agis is acquiring Maze Theory → undisclosed.

Maze Theory, known for titles including Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom and Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, will retain its own brand and team.

17. Compulsion Games completes its management buyout from Xbox → undisclosed.

The South of Midnight developer is independent again and has regained ownership of its original IP including Contrast, We Happy Few and South of Midnight.

UA Financing:

18. Up to $10M → Qiiwi Games enters a non-dilutive UA financing partnership with Plan A Games for Wordington Solitaire.

The facility can scale to $10M if agreed performance targets are met.

Fixed Income / Adjacent Financing:

19. $400M → AppsFlyer reportedly secures a credit facility from Bank Leumi.

The financing follows the company’s earlier $2.7B transaction involving investors including Moloco, Google, Meta and Unity.

Fund Launches:

20. $250M → Makers Fund closes Fund IV.

The games and interactive entertainment investor now manages approximately $1.5B and has backed more than 90 portfolio companies.

21. CAA launches Frame1Games.

The year-long indie funding and accelerator initiative comes with a multi-million-dollar capital commitment alongside mentorship, marketing, distribution and access to CAA’s entertainment network.

Platform and Regulatory Moves:

22. Apple cuts the cost of alternative distribution in the EU.

The previous Core Technology Fee is being replaced with a 5% Core Technology Commission on digital transactions in apps distributed through alternative marketplaces or the web.

23. Apple has four months to redesign its App Tracking Transparency consent prompt following action from Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.

The regulator argued that Apple’s current implementation could steer users differently when choosing whether to allow tracking by third-party apps.

Earlier August Carry-over:

24. $19.7M → AI motion-capture company Kikitora discloses funding through an SEC filing.

Its technology converts ordinary video into 3D performance capture data and can operate offline with tools including Unity, Unreal, Maya and Blender.

25. $9M → Singapore-based games publisher 4Divinity receives additional investment from ADATA Technology at a $350M post-money valuation.

26. $1M → Polish developer FunVenture closes seed financing to expand its project pipeline and scale existing titles.
    
    

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

I'd added 🔜 Gamescom to my LinkedIn name. He read it as "moving on". Told him it was an event, not an exit. His reply: "ah good."

Two words. No agenda.

If you're into customer-centric relationships, this is the kind of moment that makes the grind worth it and keeps me going on the floor.

En route to Gamescom next week :)

What's the smallest client message that ever made your week?

tCARe, CARtic
/iCartic.com

5. UA Financing: $20M → Comunix raises UA funding from PvX Partners to scale Pokerface

6. Adjacent Capital: $57M → ACCO Brands acquires GXT Holding, owner of the Trust gaming accessories brand, from Egeria

7. Developing Story: $0.75M → Copa Fantasy finalising its seed round (not yet closed)

New Studio Launches and Spinouts:
8. Mattel forms Mattel Game Studios (Hot Wheels, UNO)
9. 2K establishes Small Axe Studios (AAA sports)
10. Dark Ritual Studios launches, founded by ex-Ubisoft Barcelona team

TL;DR
1. WEBTOON buys 60% of RI Games, $100M
2. Kunlun sells Xianlai Huyu, $111M
3. KitBash buys ArtStation + Sketchfab (from Epic)
4. Comunix $20M UA via PvX
5. New studios: Mattel, 2K Small Axe, Dark Ritual


Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

1. $77M → Nazara raises from Bluetile and BestPlay founders and leadership

2. $40M → Tripledot acquires Supersonic from Unity

3. $1.45M → Majestic Mind Games, Saudi Arabia, raises

4. $1.0M → FunVenture, Poland, seed from Acquinox Capital, ART-Tech Fund and angels including Mariusz Gasiewski and Janusz Moneta

5. Razer acquires StreamElements assets - undisclosed

6. Digital Hearts Holdings (TSE: 3676) taken private by Sandbox Co - undisclosed

7. Digital Hearts acquires IMAGICA GEEQ’s game-debugging business, signed Aug 6, completes Nov 1 - undisclosed

8. Corsair Gaming acquires Australia-based sim cockpit maker Trak Racer - undisclosed

9. Sandyfloor, South Korea, follow-on from Kona Venture Partners and new investor Laguna Investment - undisclosed

10. Enduring Games takes a strategic stake in Twin Galaxies - undisclosed

Developing Story:

11. Devolver Digital proposes going private, off the London Stock Exchange

12. EA reportedly exploring a sale of BioWare and other IPs following the Saudi-led takeover

13. New Studio Launches & Spinouts: Momin Games launches in Vietnam, mobile
    

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P


PS. Sorting my Schengen visa for Gamescom. If you're based in Germany and open to helping with an appointment/invite letter, drop me a DM. 🙏🏾


PPS: Other posts from last week what dominated July chart?

From top downloads to breakout rev makers, a snapshot of Jul26 WW global chart:

Top Grossing Titles:
Honor of Kings back at 1 with $157.6M (up 42% from $110.6M in June)
followed by Roblox with $101.6M, followed by Pokémon GO at 3 with $101.1M

Top Downloads:
Roblox at 1 with 22.9M+
followed by Free Fire MAX at 2 with 22.8M+
Arrow Puzzle: Tap Puzzle Games at 3 with 19.3M+ downloads

Games to Track in August:

1. Pokémon GO, at 3 with rev at $101.1M, its best month since July 2021. The 10th anniversary, and its first under Scopely, has worked in their favor. Need to watch whether the bump holds post-anniversary event.

2. eFootball, all-time rev record at $69.9M (11), 4th straight month it has climbed on WC momentum. The clearest case of a studio converting a real-world event into durable IAP.

3. The arrow-game reshuffle,

   1. Arrow Puzzle: Tap Puzzle Games climbs to 3 downloads (19.3M)

   2. Arrows: Puzzle Escape 1 to 11 (25.3M to 11.4M)

   3. Amaze GO! 2 to 9 (23.2M to 11.9M)

vs June, What Shifted:

1. Honor of Kings roars back. $157.6M is a 42% jump and its best month since January ($172.4M).

   1. Summer school holidays in China plus the team’s habit of saving big events for July-August is the likely driver.

2. Roblox does the double. 1# downloads (22.9M) and 2# rev ($101.6M) in the same month. Got it with its young audience and summer break.

3. PUBGM back in the top 5 at $99M

4. Last War: Survival declines a 4th straight month, $64.5M (down from $71.4M), and drops to 12#.

5. Isn’t Football a category now. 4 titles in the top15 downloads: Soccer Superstar (5#), Football League 2026 (8#), EA SPORTS FC Mobile 26 (10#), eFootball (12#).

Charts are curated monthly at iCartic.com
tCARe, Cartic P

FUNDING & M&A

1. $55B → EA’s take-private closes on or about August 4 (tomo). Some insights via FAQ with answers

   1. Does a $55B deal mean money is coming into games? No. Roughly $20B of the $55B is JPMorgan debt, about $18B drawn at close, and it lands on EA’s balance sheet. Shareholders get cashed out at $210 a share. The operating business gets leverage, not capital.

   2. Who actually bought EA? PIF at 93.4%. Silver Lake at 5.5%. Affinity Partners at 1.1%. A sovereign wealth fund, a private equity firm, and Jared Kushner’s investment vehicle.

2. $3.2M → ForgeGUI, AI asset generation for Roblox and UEFN, at a $40M valuation. Verdict Capital led. Founder Giulio Greco turned 18 in late June, so his parents signed the docs. Two people. 300K users. Launched in March.

3. Undisclosed → Razer acquires StreamElements assets from Live Momentum. Part of the consideration is earmarked to clear payments the platform already owed creators.

4. Undisclosed → Nordic Partners Gaming (Malta) takes AM Gaming’s CS2 roster, ranked 79th. NPG’s parent is an iGaming affiliate network.

5. Undisclosed → Hypercent (South Korea, PC and console) closes a Seed round.

FUND LAUNCH

6. $30M → Drilo Ventures, backing Turkish-founded mobile studios wherever they sit. $500K to $1.5M cheques. First close in October.

7. Undisclosed → UzCA Game Fund, Uzbekistan’s first. $1K to $2K for concepts, $5K to $20K in development, $50K to $100K+ on proven revenue.

STUDIOS & ECOSYSTEM

8. up to £100K each → UK Games Fund backs 29 studios.

9. $1,000 each → Türkiye’s NextGen high school incubator. Six teams, equity-free. $10K to the Demo Day winner.

ADJACENT CAPITAL

10. $30M → Ex-Anduril founders raise for a synthetic battlefield for defence AI. Defence, gaming adjacent.

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

PS last week's post on AI Tech Art opening from EA

1. The legacy stack is still there: Blender, Unreal, After Effects, Nuke.

2. The AI stack sits in the same list: ComfyUI, LoRA, ControlNet, Veo, Nano Banana.

3. Governance is written into the role: IP usage, Approvals, Disclosures, Policy compliance, Incident handling. A tech art JD carrying compliance weight.

4. FYI. This one is brand and campaign content for XO AI Labs, not game production

The merge people keep predicting is not coming. It is in a live JD at a major publisher.

If you are figuring out what to learn next, read this JD as a map.
Link in the first comment.

PS: AI tools or governance, which one surprised you more?
tCARe, CARtic P
/ iCartic.com

1. Meshy raised ~$400M at a $1.5B valuation. AI 3D generation.

2. Neon Commerce raised $13M. a16z and Renegade co-led, Krafton came in as strategic. D2C storefronts for publishers.

3. Pure raised $8M. Compliance and payments rails for real-money peer-to-peer games.

4. Ash Games Studio raised $1.5M. Merak Capital and Impact46. Saudi action-adventure for PC and console. The only money on this list that went into making a game.

5. Tencent is in talks for SuperPlay at $1B to $1.5B. Talks.

6. Uzbekistan launched its first fund for game studios. Cheques run $1,000 to $100,000.

7. Alpha Dog Games founders bought the studio back from Microsoft. The deal actually closed in May 2025. Nobody noticed for 14 months, until a LinkedIn profile edit gave it away.

8. When Tides Turn launched in the UK. Same Wreckreation team, now self-publishing the sequel on a UK grant.

Deal/NoDeal: Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery hit a restraining order. Extended Thursday. No close before Aug 18.

Clone wars: Funfinity sued ABI Global over Colony Flow. The clone outranked the original in downloads despite launching a month later.

TL;DR:

1. $422M disclosed. 95% of it went to one AI 3D company. 0.35% went to a studio building a game.

2. The two studio comebacks were buyouts, not raises.

3. The biggest number on the page is not signed yet.

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

PS. Other posts from last week: 1. SRMIST Keynote Session, 2. Did India have paying players, or do we pay the players? RMG side effect

Indie Game Development In India Lessons & Postmortems

3.15MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Full session reel (YT Stream link):

If you’re into IG carousel, here's a link to the IG post from the Geekroom SRMIST Instagram post

tCARe, CARtic P
/iCartic.com

We used to have players who landed from performance ads. Tried the game. Tried their luck. Grabbed early giveaways. Timed the encashment turnaround.

If everything checked out, they stayed.
And we called that retention.

Regulation switched off the payback loop, and the entire behaviour and persona disappeared with it.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: they were never playing your game.
They were playing your payout system.

One of the best things that happened with RMG games is that players got to know how to make in-app purchases.

So the design brief for you to figure out is what loop replaces payback? What’s the motivation to introduce when you can’t pay them to play?

tCARe, Cartic P
/ iCartic.com

$593M out (stake sale), $1M in (as raise). That was the week.

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P


PS. Other posts from last week: Indie devs under $1M, are you tipping Apple extra 15%?

Manual enrollment only. It never happens by default. Who qualifies:

1. Under $1M USD in proceeds last cal year

2. New developers, from day one

3. Proceeds means net of Apple’s cut, so ~$1.3M gross can still qualify

Reduced rate only kicks in 15 days after the fiscal month your enrollment is approved. Every month you wait is margin handed back to Cupertino.

PS. EU alternative terms devs get a further cut to 10%

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

1. Kaon AI raised $60M for AI story worlds (FlowGPT, Emochi), gaming-adjacent. Emochi claims 2M daily users at 150 mins a day. Session time most games would kill for.

2. Bold Games raised $6M, Istanbul-based studio.

3. Kantrip raised $2.75M, UK-based AI game engine developer.

4. Slitherine acquires Blood Bowl license and publishing rights from Nacon, undisclosed.

5. Scopely invests in Studio AuKnow, the ex-Umamusume Pretty Derby director’s new studio, undisclosed.

6. Google opened a $1M Indie Games Fund for African developers.

7. Innovate UK opened a £10M (~$12.7M) Createch funding call for game developers.

Capital chases engagement, not categories.

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

PS. Other posts from last week: June chart, micro dramas stats

From top downloads to breakout revenue earners, a snapshot of Jun26 WW global chart:

Top Grossing Titles: Honor of Kings holds #1 with $110.6M (down 29% from $155.9M in May), followed by Whiteout Survival with $109.1M, followed by Royal Match at #3 with $102.7M.

Top Downloads: Arrows: Puzzle Escape at no.1 with 25.3M+, followed by Amaze GO! at #2 with 23.2M+ (listed as Arrows GO! in May, same publisher, same rank), Free Fire MAX at #3 with 22.7M+ downloads

Games to track in July

1. World-cup season: eFootball, KONAMI climbs 6 spots to #12 revenue ($43M), its best month ever. World Cup attention is lifting the whole football category in downloads,

   1. Soccer Superstar (+20 spots)

   2. Football League 2026 (+21)

   3. EA SPORTS FC Mobile 26 (+9). eFootball is the only one converting that attention into IAP at scale. July tells us who retains.

2. Arrow Puzzle: Tap Puzzle Games, climbs from #10 to #5 (16.4M installs).

   1. Three titles with the same mechanic now sit in the top 5 downloads. Two of them share a publisher :?

3. Tasty Travels: Merge Game, the playtime leader at 117.2 mins per user, earning $24.7M.

   1. Royal Match does $102.5M on 90.1 mins.

   2. Candy Crush does its number on the lowest playtime on the board, 63.2 mins.

vs May, What Shifted:

1. Honor of Kings sheds $45M and still wins. A 29% IAP drop would end most games’ reign. Tencent’s MOBA is prone to big swings, and $110.6M is still well above its Nov-Dec 2025 dip below $90M.

2. Whiteout Survival has posted roughly $110M for four straight months.

3. Royal Match, roughly $100M for three.

4. Last War: Survival declines for a third month, $71.4M (down from $80.7M). Downloads are at their lowest since November 2023, when the project began scaling. The earlier D2C hypothesis still holds, but the UA pullback looks like the bigger driver.

5. Candy Crush Saga drops to just over $77M, its weakest month since April 2022. On AppMagic’s May chart it sat at $90.4M.

6. PUBG Mobile falls to just over $62M. It was $118.2M in February.

7. Brawl Stars exits the top 20 at under $27M, after three months in the $34-38M range.

Charts are curated monthly at iCartic.com
tCARe, Cartic P

Micro-drama has D1 retention 27%. D30 ~2%. D90 ~1%.

US ARPDAU from $2.50+ down to under $0.50.
US and Japan downloads plateaued, so UA shifted to India, Indonesia, Brazil.

The Indian download spike is an act to please investors, rather than focus on India as a market; India is more of a metric to them than a market. (That’s another story to brainstorm).

Isn’t it the same biz metric as hyper-casual games: LTV, stickiness, session length, retention

Hotstar’s tadka and Amazon MX Player’s fatafat are jumping in. Classic laggard move: rent a new audience to stretch your late-maturity stage.

When you say Micro-drama absorbs hypercasual gamers’ attention I agree, But You cannot fill a games-sized revenue hole with 1% D90 retention.
tCARe, Cartic P
/ iCartic.com

1. Funding and M&A: $3.1M → Spill Games raises seed round to scale mobile games portfolio

2. Griffin Gaming Partners acquires strategic stake in tinyBuild (undisclosed, AIM-listed)

3. Kepler Interactive acquires minority stake in Oro Interactive (undisclosed)

4. CVC Capital Partners invests in Chess(dot)com (undisclosed)

5. Fund Launch: $50M → Denmu launches fund dedicated to visionary game makers

6. Adjacent Capital: $320M → General Intuition Series A at $2.3B post-money, AI-for-gaming infra, adjacent

7. $150M → Tripo AI raises for GenAI 3D tooling, gaming adjacent

8. New Studio Launch: Atmospheric, new studio from nDreams founder, original IP across games and music

9. Studios & ecosystem: Savvy Games Group partners with Genvid and Massive Studios to expand AI access for Saudi developers

Pure gaming raised $3M last week. AI-for-gaming raised $470M.
The money isn’t going into games, it’s going into what powers them.

Stay ahead. Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P

Wanted to introduce a new Job Board meant exclusively for Tech Artists. Currently, it has 129+ open roles, updated weekly (refreshed 2-3 times per week).

One click. No signup wall. No recruiter spam. Free to browse. Covering:

• Environment, Character, VFX

• Houdini, Shaders, Pipeline, Tools

Share it with anyone who might find it helpful! 🧡
tCARe, CARtic P