News

Stillfront Group acquires casual developer Storm8 in deal worth up to $400 million

$300 million upfront, with $100 million if financial targets are met

Date Type Companies involved Size
January 22nd, 2020 acquisition Stillfront Group
Storm8
$400m
Stillfront Group acquires casual developer Storm8 in deal worth up to $400 million

Stillfront Group has announced plans to acquire California-based mobile games developer Storm8 in a deal worth up to $400 million.

The deal consists of $300 million being paid upfront, with $75 million in newly issued Stillfront shares. An additional earn-out consideration of $100 million will be paid if Storm8 hits certain financial targets in 2020 and 2021. The deal is expected to close by February 28th.

To fund the purchase, Stillfront has secured two loans with Nordea Bank Abp, Filial i Sverige and Swedbank AB worth 1.6 billion SEK ($167.9 million) and 500 million SEK ($52.5 million) each.

Kixeye of the Storm8

Storm8 is best known for its catalogue of casual titles which collectively saw over one billion downloads in March 2015. We last reported on the studio in February 2017 following a round of layoffs which affected 130 members of staff, over half its workforce at the time.

The acquisition is another in a line of similar deals for Stillfront, which acquired Kixeye in June 2019 with similar terms but a total value of $120 million. We spoke to COO Alexis Bonte at the end of 2019 about why the company will continue its M&A strategy in the coming years.


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Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.