Mobile gaming company Voodoo acquires Beach Bum – TechCrunch

French startup Voodoo Made an important acquisition in the casual mobile game market.The company is acquiring Beach bum, Israel-based game studio specializing in desktop and card games.

Voodoo offers both cash and stock, and with some holding bonuses, it’s difficult to get a definite number of this acquisition. Voodoo may have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in total, according to sources. Beach Bum has made $ 70 million in revenue over the last 12 months, so you can see the size of the deal.

Voodoo is well known for that Hyper casual game, Helix Jump, Crowd City, Hole.io, Paper.io2 and more. The company is a game developer and publisher. We have partnered with other game studios to build a technology stack to optimize distribution, average revenue per user, and more.

The company has raised funds From tencent And Goldman Sachs. Most recently, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert has invested € 266 million ($ 309 million at today’s exchange rates) in Voodoo. The value of the company is 1.7 billion euros (about 2 billion dollars).

Voodoo, without wasting time, immediately after raising new funding, began to consider acquisition targets for external growth opportunities. Currently, there are 350 people working in Voodoo. Beach Bum has 150 employees who participate in Voodoo.

With today’s acquisition, Voodoo expands into a new segment and adds some casual games to its hyper-casual catalog. Beach Bum currently has three games on the App Store: Backgammon (Lord of the Board), Spades Royale, and Gin Rummy Stars.

The business model is also a little different. Historically, Voodoo has relied primarily on advertising to monetize its games. Beach Bum is focusing on in-app purchases instead. In this way, acquisitions diversify voodoo revenue sources.

“”[Beach Bum] We are currently developing two more games. The purpose of Voodoo is to use BeachBum as a gateway to in-app purchases. So they would want Beach Bum to play as many games as possible, “Gigi Levy Weiss told me.

Gigi Levi Weiss is a general partner of venture capital NFX He currently does not play an operational role in the gaming company, but he is an active chairman of the board of directors.

“The Israeli gaming industry has grown significantly in the last few years. To date, we have 400 companies. Primarily by European and Asian buyers, several exits have occurred. A few months ago. Israeli game company Playtika It was IPOed on the Nasdaq for a $ 11 billion valuation, “Avihai Michaeli, a senior investment banker based in Tel Aviv, told me.