Investment news – digest from April 20 to 26

All the gaming deals for the past week in one material.

The material was prepared specifically for App2Top.ru Sergey Evdokimov, Investment Manager Mail.Ru Games Ventures and the author of the telegram channel Gaming – M&As and Investments.

Sergey Evdokimov1. Sohy completed the acquisition of Changyou for $579 million

A Chinese Internet company that combines a media portal, a search engine and gaming assets Sohu.com (NASDAQ: SOHU) has completed the acquisition of a leading developer and operator of online games Changyou.com (NASDAQ: CYOU), repurchasing the remaining outstanding shares from the market for $579 million.

2. Stillfront Group bought mobile publisher Candywriter for $74.4 million with additional conditional payments of $120.6 million

Stillfront Group has acquired 100% of the mobile publisher and developer Candywriter, which released BitLife. The acquisition cost was $74.4 million. An additional $120.6 million will be paid by the buyer upon reaching the target income level of Candywriter in fiscal years 2020-2022.

3. Transcend Fund raised $50 million to invest in games in the early stages of developmentTranscend Fund has raised $50 million, which will be used to search for promising game projects in the early development phase.

The Foundation is ready to consider games of different genres for different platforms from teams from any region. The fund plans to invest in seed rounds or in series “A” amounts from $200 thousand to $ 2 million.

4. Republic has bought the crowdfunding platform Fig

Crowdfunding service for startups Republic has announced the acquisition of another well—known crowdfunding platform – Fig.

The latter specializes in raising funds exclusively for gaming projects. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

5. Veterans of the gaming industry have opened a new studio called Adept Games and raised $5.5 million

Studio AuthorDigital, founded with the participation of Bill Roper, one of the producers of the first parts of Diablo and Warcraft, has entered into a partnership agreement with an investment fund Super.com .

As part of it, she received $ 5.5 million for development. The partners will open a joint venture – the game studio Adept Games. She will create a new original game.

6. Opera Event has raised $5 million for the development of an esports platform

Opera Event, a platform for organizing work between influencers and advertisers, has completed a $5 million Series A funding round with the participation of lead investor Antera Inc. and previously participating investors Atlas Ventures, Konvoy Ventures and Everblue Asset Management.

7. Finnish developer Reworks raised $4.3 million for its debut project

Helsinki-based developer Reworks has raised $4.3 million to develop and promote the Redecor mobile architectural design simulator.

A year ago, $1.5 million was invested in the project.

8. 1939 Games Studio raised $1.9 million to develop a collectible card game from World War II

Icelandic computer game developer 1939 Games has raised $1.9 million to develop a newly released digital collectible card game based on World War II KARDS.

10. The GamePad gaming platform attracted $65 thousand.
The Belarusian startup GamePad attracted $65 thousand of investments from investclub participants.

vc: Volat Capital, business angels from Belarus and the USA. GamePad is a gaming platform inside the Telegram messenger. The games themselves run on external servers, but are displayed directly in Telegram via the API.