Business of games: 13 biggest funding rounds, partnerships, and trends from the last week

Investment round-up details from July 2nd week, 252

Hey Friends, Greetings from Bangalore 💗

Investment news update, from the July 2nd week:

1. Former Piranha Bytes devs form Pithead Studio

2. Summer Games Done Quick 2024 raises $2.5m

3. Landvault has been acquired by Infinite Reality for $450m

4. Hawke Media acquires gaming & entertainment agency Lemonade

5. Felicity Games raises $700K in pre-seed to test 10 games within a year

6. Top App Games has appointed industry veteran Vladimir Markov as its new CEO following a significant investment from My.Games former CEO Vladimir Nikolsky.

7. Series Entertainment acquires mobile studio Pixelberry

8. Aethir and GameSwift team up on Web3 gaming

9. New indie publishing and investment firm First Break Labs forms

10. Soccerverse has secured $3.1 million in a funding round led by Square Enix

11. Volley raises $55M voice-enabled AI games, series C funding round

12. Sony Music, Aniplex, and Pocketpair form Palworld Entertainment

13. Shift Up raises $320 million in IPO, the largest for a game company in South Korea since Krafton

Top Trends from last week:

1. Embracer closes down Piranha Bytes

2. Embracer secures new €600m revolving credit facility

3. Amir Satvat forecasts 4,463 more game workers will be laid off in 2024, but rate is slowing

4. Kotaku Australia to shut down

5. Saudi Arabia set to host first Olympic Esports Games

6. Roblox launches new range of analytical tools for developers

7. Voodoo signs partnership with Audiomob for audio ads

With Love, Cartic P
/ @iCartic