Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, gaming companies have seen an enormous increase in new users and total hours played
Along with this surge has come a flurry of mergers and acquisitions.
As a result, gaming companies have already acquired 220 companies globally in 2021, up from 165 in 2020 and 142 in 2019.
Venture capital-backed startups have acquired 48 companies this year compared to 42 all last year. The 5-year high (of acquisitions by VC-startups) was 59 back in 2016. This record could be beat this year.
Michael Torosian, a corporate attorney focused on M&A said “the revenue and these business models, in my mind, are so robust that the gaming investors and the gaming company acquirers are all over this… And the more general investors and the group companies or the larger corporates are looking at this space much more seriously and putting a lot more dollars into investments and acquisitions. The numbers will speak for themselves. These companies are obtaining and keeping users and they’re generating revenue.”
2020 was called the “year of gaming” by many, but it seems that already this year, that moniker deserves to be re-awarded. The first half of 2021 saw over $60 billion in gaming deals, which almost doubled the entire dollar-value of investment in 2020.
Now, with so much acquisition competition, gaming companies may find themselves competing with others for smaller mobile game developers, game-tech startups, and studios… driving the valuations of these smaller companies even higher.
Investors in smaller gaming companies could reap a windfall as the these valuations skyrocket.
Read more about gaming deal-flow and Acquisitions, HERE
Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/gaming-startup-acquisitions/