Hey Friends, greetings from Bangalore 💗
Here’s your last week curated look at the deals that moved the needle in gaming:
Funding & M&A
1. $35M → Gardens Interactive Series B, led by Lightspeed, with Sequoia and Yamauchi No.10
2. $500K → Vatar pre-seed at a $10M valuation, closed in under a day, three days after incorporation. Its browser game Lagos Life launched on Nigeria’s Independence Day and hit 4.3M users across 15 countries.
3. $500K → CGT Capital backs micro studio Job Studios.
4. Mobge Games raises from Joygrid Ventures at a $10M valuation. Undisclosed.
5. Fireshine Games (Enad Global 7) acquires Fair Games ApS, the Danish studio behind Necesse. Undisclosed.
Liquidity & Exits
6. $55M → FIRY (formerly Skillz) sells its entire 10.5% Exit Games stake back to the company. It paid $50M in July 2021, so roughly 1.1x in five years. Exit Games, the maker of Photon, is founder-owned again.
Public Funding
7. $1M → South Australia launches a Digital Games Fund.
Adjacent Capital
8. $3M → Thrixel inception round, AI-native 3D creation platform.
TL;DR
→ $36M disclosed into game studios across 3 deals
→ $35M of it went to one unreleased game
→ $500K went to a game built in a night that already has 4.3M players
→ FIRY’s five-year hold on Photon returned 1.1x
→ South Australia put $1M on the table
Curated weekly at iCartic.com
tCARe, CARtic P
PS other posts from me (last weeks) CPI benchmarks, Sept game chart