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April 17, 2013 06:43 pm GMT

Confirmed: Red-Hot Gaming Startup Supercell Raised $130M, Made $179M Last Quarter

Supercell_logo_white_on_blackLast month, we posted a bit of a rumor: that Finland’s Supercell — likely the most lucrative iOS gaming company in the world — had raised about $100 million in funding in a round led by Index Ventures, Atomico Partners and Institutional Venture Partners. Now we have confirmation today that the deal did happen, according to a flashy Forbes feature. The tiny Helsinki-based company, which is a little over 90-people strong, did in fact raise $130 million on a $770 million valuation from Index, Atomico and IVP. Like we said, the round was secondary: all shareholders, including early investor Accel Partners, sold 16.7 percent of their holdings in the company to the newer investors. Index took $52.5 million of the round. Not only that, Supercell shared some revenue figures, (and holy crap, are they bigger than I thought they would be). Last quarter, Supercell made $179 million and netted $104 million of that after expenses and Apple’s 30 percent cut. Last year, they grossed $100 million. Today, they’re making $2.4 million a day — which is about double the rumor figures I had heard from numerous sources in the industry. They also have about 8.5 million daily active users, which is actually lower than comparable companies like King or Zynga. So they monetize their existing players well. Why share these numbers now? It’s likely because Finland has some unusual rules around financial disclosures for privately held companies. Even privately-backed companies have to share the the split of their equity holdings. Angry Birds-maker Rovio reported earnings a few weeks ago, saying they doubled revenue and made about $195 million last year. Supercell’s CEO Ilkka Paananen said in the Forbes story that they took the funding to give early shareholders a payout, give a “thank you” to employees and avoid pressure to go public. Clearly, they didn’t need the capital. But $770 million is a steep bar to clear and they’ll now have pressure to prove that they’re worth several times that.

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/o03oNtu1ZWw/

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