Wildlife Scores Vulcan-led $120M Series B Financing To Propel Mobile Game Platform

If you haven’t noticed lately, gaming is on fire. The latest to get in on the action is Wildlife Studios, which announced Friday a $120 million round of Series B financing—its second raise in eight months—bringing the company’s post round valuation to nearly $3 billion, the company said in a written statement.

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Vulcan Capital led the cash infusion with participation from existing investor Human Capital. This new round brings the Brazil-based company’s total financing to $250 million since being founded in 2011, according to a company release.

Growth

You might remember Crunchbase News covered the company’s $60 million Series A back in December, which took the company to unicorn status with a post-round valuation of $1.3 billion.

Since we last caught up with Wildlife, the company, founded by brothers Victor and Arthur Lazarte, has added 200 employees to total 700 employees spread out across five offices.

In the statement, Wildlife said it will use its new capital to continue growing its existing titles, further accelerate its new game development engine, build the infrastructure for the future of mobile games, and invest in talent as it scales globally.

Specifically, CEO Victor Lazarte said the maker of popular mobile games Zooba and Tennis Clash (among others) will “expand our creative powerhouse … to become a platform for the world’s best game developers, allowing them to create their dream games. Over the next two years, we plan to invest up to $200 million to make Wildlife the go-to place for the best game designers in the world.”

Wildlife Studios has launched more than 60 titles in the past nine years and said it has reached 2 billion mobile game downloads. The company operates on a “freemium” business model, notes Brazil Journal, meaning that (like Fortnite) it does not charge users to play but only to purchase things if they wish to accelerate progress.

Vulcan Capital Partner Rafael Costa said in a written statement that the company is “building a generational company in the mobile sector–initially as it continues to deliver highly popular games, but ultimately by delivering a platform for game developers.”

More on gaming

Speaking of Fortnite, last week, we covered Epic Games’ $1.78 billion in new funding. The figure included the $250 million the company raised from Sony last month, and brings Epic’s valuation to $17.3 billion, according to the statement from the company.

On Thursday, The Verge reported that the game developer filed a lawsuit against Apple after Fortnite’s iOS version was removed from the App Store. We’ve also learned this involves Google banning Fortnite from its app store, too. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

Even smaller companies are raising money. Play One Up, an e-sports mobile app that allows gamers to compete for money, raised a $3.1 million seed round led by Three Curve Capital, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively in June.

Photo captions: Wildlife CEO Victor Lazarte and Tennis Clash line-up. Photos courtesy of Wildlife.
Blogroll illustration: iStock