Popcore acquired by Zynga / Rollic / TakeTwo

Today we congratulate Johannes and Thomas Heinze, co-founders of Popcore, as they and their team are joining Zynga/Rollic/TakeTwo. Although the details of the deal remain undisclosed, I can confirm that the brothers were this happy about the valuation and decision to go ahead with the deal:

We’re also very happy at EQT Ventures, as we were the first and only lead investor in the company as we made a bet on Janni and Tommi 3.5 years ago, leading Popcore’s seed round. Our bet was that these two founders, whom I had gotten to know through the industry when I was producing games at King and they were selling ads at Fyber, would be able to go into the fiercely competitive hyper-casual industry and build a leading company, which is exactly what they’ve done. In the last 3.5 years, they’ve managed to produce global hits like Pull the Pin, Parking Jam 3D, Sandwich and Folding Blocks, build a 100+ person strong mobile games studio and generate more than a 10x gross MOIC return for EQT Ventures without ever raising more capital than the seed round.

After a quick glance in EQT Ventures’ own single-source of data-truth Motherbrain, I can also proudly share that Janni, Tommi and I have had more than 100 zoom call catch-ups the past 3.5 years. Most of them have been entertaining discussions full of laughter (like the picture above, where they share their passion for Sushi), and I’ll personally miss these recurring brainstorming sessions going forward. But I’m confident that Popcore, under Janni & Tommi’s leadership, will continue to prosper under Zynga / TakeTwo’s umbrella, and that the three of us will get more chances to collaborate sometime in the future. Congratulations again!