Mag Interactive went public today at a market valuation of $137 million. It’s the Swedish company behind the hit puzzle word game Ruzzle.
The company and its shareholders sold 11.3 million shares to the public and raised an estimated $21.6 million in net proceeds. The offering is one more example of how Europeans are seeing great success in mobile games and how that is resulting in wealth-creating transactions. In 2016, Tencent acquired control of Supercell in a deal that valued the maker of Clash Royale at $10 billion. Angry Birds maker Rovio also went public, as did Next Games and Nitro Games. Atomico recently crunch numbers and found that Europe accounts for 35 percent of game funding rounds, or more than any other region. The Nordic region in particular has had great success.
While it isn’t a huge offering, it’s still shows the strength of the public markets and business ecosystems in Europe to support mobile game companies. In the U.S., the companies that scored hits haven’t gone public. Zynga did 2011, but its fortunes sank for a time, and it scared off investors. Kabam was sold in pieces, and MZ has chosen to stay as a private company. Meanwhile, smaller companies in Europe have shown they can go public.
”We are very pleased about the strong interest in Mag Interactive demonstrated by the public and institutional investors during the listing process,” said Daniel Hasselberg, CEO and cofounder, in a statement. “The strong demand from both Nordic and international investors confirms our belief in our strategy, our offering as well as our potential. This is an important milestone for us, and we welcome all new owners to the continuation of MAG Interactive’s journey.”
Mag’s shares are listed under Nasdaq First North Premier under the symbol MAGI. The company offered the shares at $5.20 a share, or 44 Swedish Krona.
Earlier this year, Stockholm-based Mag told us that it had more than 100 million downloads for games such as Ruzzle, Wordbrain, and Wordalot. Overall profit was €5.8 million ($6.1 million). Ruzzle itself was more than 70 million of the downloads, and the success enabled the company to hire more than 50 people.
Mag said its success is a direct result of analyzing the successes and failures of its previous mobile launches and drawing conclusions on how to optimize and streamline the development process for its future work. It eliminated the “normal” top-down managerial structure in order to encourage teams providing an open, collaborative, and constructive environment
Sweden itself is doing pretty good in games, with 236 companies that have 3,709 employees.