Royal Fit, a puzzle sport evolved by way of Turkey’s Dream Video games, is now performed by way of 13 million other folks every month.
Dream Video games
Traders are having a bet the following giant luck tale in gaming will pop out of Turkey, whilst the rustic endures a brutal financial disaster.
Istanbul-based cell sport developer Dream Video games has raised $255 million in a brand new spherical of investment, the corporate instructed CNBC. Traders now price the company at $2.75 billion, virtually triple the $1 billion it was once value simply six months in the past in its remaining collection of fundraising.
The money injection was once led by way of Index Ventures, which first subsidized the corporate in February 2021. Present traders Makers Fund, IVP, Kora and Balderton Capital additionally participated within the spherical, whilst BlackRock joined as a brand new investor.
Cellular gaming — and tech extra widely — is proving to be a brilliant spot in an in a different way hellish financial panorama in Turkey.
Turks have confronted hovering costs amid a plunge within the price of the lira — the foreign money has fallen greater than 40% in opposition to the U.S. greenback previously 12 months.
A few of this decline was once fueled by way of geopolitical tensions, along with Turkey’s over the top industry deficit and mounting money owed. However traders say the location was once exacerbated by way of an unorthodox financial coverage, with the central financial institution chopping rates of interest aggressively on the behest of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish tech is going world
Dream Video games was once based in 2019 by way of former executives at Top Video games, every other cell gaming start-up which was once bought by way of Zynga for $1.8 billion. Zynga later agreed to be taken over by way of Take-Two Interactive in a $12.7 billion deal.
Turkey is now house to probably the most most useful tech start-ups on the planet, with e-commerce company Trendyol valued at $16.5 billion and on-line grocery start-up Getir value $7.7 billion.
Soner Aydemir, Dream Video games’ co-founder and CEO, has constructed a industry much more precious than his earlier project. He says the luck of Top Video games and different Turkish corporations has helped force investor hobby within the nation’s burgeoning tech trade.
“In Turkey, we now have hundreds of proficient younger other folks,” Aydemir instructed CNBC in an interview. “Cellular gaming offers them the chance to achieve an international target market for the primary time.”
In a an identical vein, Getir has been increasing its achieve past Turkey into different markets such because the U.Okay. and The us.
Aydemir mentioned Dream Video games is much less suffering from volatility within the native foreign money as “99% of our income comes from outdoor Turkey.” The corporate additionally takes care of its staff, he added, providing “aggressive” salaries in comparison to different companies.
“There may be a minimum of one virtual corporate in Turkey which is value greater than $10 billion, so it is clearly been a supply of significant skill for a very long time,” Stephane Kurgan, the spouse at Index Ventures who led the funding in Dream Video games, instructed CNBC.
Impressed by way of Pixar
Dream Video games launched its first name, a puzzle sport known as Royal Fit, in March remaining 12 months.
The sport sees gamers fit up tiles of various colours till they get sufficient issues to growth to the following stage, very similar to Activision-owned King’s Sweet Overwhelm Saga and Top Video games’ Toon Blast, which Aydemir had labored on earlier than leaving the company.
Royal Fit lately broke into the highest 5 highest-grossing cell video games on Apple’s App Retailer within the U.S., in line with knowledge from App Annie. It is now performed by way of 13 million other folks every month and generates round $31 million in per thirty days internet revenues after Apple and Google take their reduce of in-app transactions.
Taking a look forward, Dream Video games plans to proceed growing Royal Fit and start paintings on a brand new name later this 12 months.
“We must extend our target market,” Aydemir mentioned. “To do this we must create a couple of titles.”
The Dream Video games founder says he’s taking numerous inspiration from Disney’s Pixar animation studio. “We aren’t like an ordinary gaming corporate specializing in the gaming target market,” he mentioned. “We’re concentrated on virtually everybody on the planet.”
“Virality and monetization” are key to development a cell gaming corporate, Index Ventures’ Kurgan instructed CNBC. Kurgan was once in the past leader working officer at King.
Take-Two Interactive’s virtually $13 billion acquire of Zynga “highlights the expansion of cell gaming,” he added. Cellular is the fastest-growing phase of the $180 billion online game trade, accounting for greater than 50% of all the marketplace.
It is not the primary time Index has made a giant guess on gaming. The company has additionally invested within the likes of Roblox, King and Supercell, which is now owned by way of Chinese language tech large Tencent.