Mobile developer and publisher Wildlife Studios has raised $60 million to expand the business. As part of the financing round, the company was valued at $1.3 billion.
Zooba
Wildlife’s Series A round closed yesterday. Benchmark Venture Fund and partners (Bessemer Venture Partners, Facebook top manager Javier Olivan, Red Ventures co-founder Rick Elias and others) invested $60 million in it.
According to VentureBeat, Benchmark’s general partner Peter Fenton also joined the board of directors of Wildlife Studios.
The collected money will go to:
- expansion of the staff. Wildlife currently employs 500 people, but the company wants to bring their number to 800 by the end of next year. Its main goal is to attract world—class specialists. So, she recently hired the former art director of Riot Games and the former vice president of SIE for development;
- Improving the quality of games. Wildlife will be able to invest more in each game. By the way, in 2020 she plans to release 3-4 new titles.
According to Wildlife CEO Victor Lazarte, the company is interested in large investors due to its globalization. “Two years ago we were considered a large company only in Brazil (Wildlife was founded in Sao Paulo – ed.), then we grew up. We have achieved global coverage,” Lazarte said.
He also noted that Wildlife’s business has gone uphill since it opened its first office in the USA. To date, the Brazilian studio has expanded to six branches. They are located in San Francisco and Dublin, among others.
For 8 years, the company has released more than 60 mobile projects and generated 2 billion downloads. Her portfolio includes half a dozen hits, such as Tennis Clash and Zooba. The latter is a midcore title that reached number five on the US chart immediately after its release. Tennis Clash is among the top 10 most downloaded mobile games in 100 countries.