Alexander Semenov

Mail.Ru Group acquired 51% of the shares of the authors of the “Guild of Heroes”

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Russian IT giant Mail.Ru The Group continues to expand its portfolio of gaming companies. Today, on April 25, the company announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in the Penza studio BIT.GAMES.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. In Mail.Ru Group is assured that it will not affect the studio’s work on the current games. The team will continue to work independently with its current mobile blockbuster role—playing game “Guild of Heroes”. The corporation will only provide expert support and “open access to its resources in the field of development, analytics and marketing.”

“Guild of Heroes”
The current purchase was the result of an already existing cooperation between the two companies.

In December last year, BIT.GAMES started working with the investment daughter of the IT giant – Mail.Ru Games Ventures. Then the company received from Mail.Ru Group investments for the development of the game.

On his Facebook page, the director Mail.Ru Games Ventures Ilya Karpinsky noted that this is the first “exit” (sale of his stake in the company) for his fund.

Our strategy is to buy a minority stake, bring the company to KPI and consolidate on mutually beneficial terms with the founders! In fact, we are both a venture fund and a strategist, and if we bought it, then we did a good job!

Ilya Karpinsky

Director Mail.Ru Games Ventures

“Guild of Heroes” is one of the most successful projects of the Penza team today. The role-playing game, which, according to App Annie, was released in 2015 on iOS and Android, today has 7 million installations. Her monthly income, according to Data.Magic, is close to $ 1 million.

Earnings of the “Guild of Heroes” for March 2018 according to Data.Magic
But BIT.GAMES, which has been involved in games since 2007, is not a company of one project at all.

For 11 years, it has released 16 gaming products focused on social networks and a mobile platform. One of her most famous projects is the game “Domovyata”, which had an audience of 10 million.

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