How Tripledot's AppLovin deal is positioning it as a major global force in mobile games

I first met the co-founders of Tripledot seven to eight years ago at the back of a London coffee shop just as they were starting up the company.

Fast-forward to 2025, it has flown under the radar to become one of the UK’s top mobile games developers, responsible for titles like Woodoku, Solitaire and Triple Tile.

It has previously raised over $250 million, with CEO and co-founder Lior Shiff telling PocketGamer.biz that this was always for M&A, with the company said to be profitable since year one. Last year it dabbled in M&A with the acquisition of Get Color developer Zephyr Mobile.

This week, Tripledot confirmed a transformative deal: the $800m acquisition of AppLovin’s entire games business. That includes $400m in cash ($150m at the close of the transactions and a $250m secured promissory note to be issued by Eton Games Inc.), while AppLovin is taking a 20% stake in the company.

Now under its wing includes 10 new companies: Lion Studios, Belka Games, Machine Zone, Clipwire Games, Magic Tavern, PeopleFun, Leyi, Athena Studio, ZenLife and Zeroo Gravity.

That means Tripledot now employs 2,500 staff across 23 cities, its daily active users have risen from 12m to 25m, and it anticipates bringing in annual gross revenue of nearly $2bn. Shiff declined to elaborate on the company’s sales prior to the deal but said it was “significantly increasing” its revenue.

Suddenly, it’s one of Europe’s largest mobile games publishers and is no longer flying under the radar.

The AppLovin deal

PocketGamer.biz was told by a senior industry exec four years ago that AppLovin had been looking to sell its studios for years. In recent times, it’s been more open about those plans, with Tripledot kicking off negotiations at the end of 2024.

Shiff says the deal to add 10 studios gives it a portfolio of sizable mobile games companies and one that’s not dependent on one or two hits. No single game is responsible for more than 10% of its revenue, he claims. It also moves the company from an ads-focused business to a 50/50 split between IAP-driven titles.

“We will be one of the most, if not the most, diversified mobile games companies at scale,” says Shiff. He adds that along with diversifying its portfolio, the deal suits Tripledot as it gives it scale and access to talent.

When we ask if Tripledot has the structure in place to support such a significant expansion, Shiff says as part of the deal it’s also bringing on a team of about 40 staff to support the group of new studios.

He also highlights how these studios have largely been independent while at AppLovin and the experience of its own leadership. At Tripledot, there will be some centralised functions, but the studios will remain independent, says Shiff.

“We feel quite comfortable,” he states. “That being said, it will be an interesting, chunky challenge for us.”

He adds: “I think the size will allow us to double down our investments in some areas that we were passionate about. For example, as Tripledot, we’ve been investing quite a bit in AI and machine learning. Now, as a larger company, we want to increase this investment because we’ll have the ability to leverage those technologies, this investment across a larger game portfolio.”

Elaborating on the company’s AI investments, Shiff says the company uses AI and generative AI tech to help make game production more efficient, such as in areas like art. Meanwhile it uses AI-powered tools for marketing, creatives and videos, which it’s been doing since the start of the year.

It’s also started experimenting with AI and machine learning to personalise the game experience. By learning player preferences, he explains it can tailor the experience to individuals.

What next for the studios? 

So now Tripledot has bought the studios, what are its plans? Its portfolio now includes a host of mature, live games, but Shiff is keen to help these teams scale and produce new games, too.

“There are some companies on the market that have been quite public about outsourcing game creation and innovation to M&A. We are not in that camp,” he says. “We think that if we stop building new games, and just operate games, it will damage who we are.

“...We will encourage our studios to keep building new games.”

Asked if it will keep all the studios open and if there will be any layoffs, Shiff says the plan right now is to keep them all.

“The value from this deal will not be created by cost-cutting,” he says. “The value here will be by helping those studios to execute to the best of their ability. My new job as the CEO of this group now will be to empower and help all of the studios be as successful as possible.”

There’s good news and bad news for the fate of Machine Zone. Tripledot plans to keep the studio, but following previous AppLovin layoffs - which saw its CEO leave earlier this year - the developer only has a small team remaining to operate legacy titles Game of War and Mobile Strike. Last year it had been working on new games, such as the now cancelled Reign of Vampires, but for the foreseeable, it won’t be producing new titles.

Threats, rewards and the future

Given such a significant expansion - and the uncertainties suggested by AppLovin regarding how much cash Tripledot could raise itself - we asked if the deal represents a potentially existential risk to its business in the long term.

“The amount of debt, and I cannot get into specifics, but the amount of debt we’re taking is quite low, so we have really low leverage. No I don’t think there’s any existential risk for Tripledot.”

He adds: “Unlike some other companies, everything we do is mobile. So we know what we know, and we know what we don’t know. We know how to build mobile games and operate mobile games businesses.

“Even if our largest game, for whatever reason, is starting to trend down, we don’t have a single game that is responsible for more than 10% of our net revenue. So we’re actually really hedged quite nicely.”

With $2bn in annual gross revenue following such a transformative deal, does an IPO now beckon for one of Europe’s new powerhouses? Shiff notes that the scale it now has gives us that option if it does decide to go public in future.

“We’re going to be very busy the next four months integrating all the studios, so it’s definitely not something we’re looking to in the near future,” says Shiff. “But down the line I think we’ll keep focusing on building great games and building a great company. Then if we decide to look into strategic options like an IPO, I think we now have the scale to explore that seriously.”