Glu Mobile Acquires Griptonite, Blammo Games for Stock, Earnouts Worth More Than $50M
Glu Mobile said today that it acquired two studios, Griptonite Games and another company it had previously partnered with, Blammo Games.
Like many other mobile game developers including Zynga and Electronic Arts, Glu is trying to boost the number and quality of titles it can roll out through a combination of acquisitions and partnerships. Other mid-size and smaller companies like Crowdstar and TinyCo have built funds where they finance titles from up-and-coming developers.
Glu says Kirkland, Washington-based Griptonite will double the company’s internal capacity with 200 more employees (some of whom are in India). The company paid for the acquisition with 6.1 million shares of stock worth $28.1 million at today’s share price.
“The opportunity — at the stroke of a pen — to nearly double studio capacity at a great price was obviously something we initially looked at,” said chief executive Niccolo de Masi in today’s earnings call, where Glu Mobile said it pulled in $9.4 million in smartphone revenue this quarter. The company, which has been making a difficult transition over the past few years from feature phone to smartphone revenue, still produced a net loss of $1.75 million.
De Masi stressed that this doesn’t herald a string of acquisitions.
“This is not the beginning of a roll-up strategy,” he said. “You can take this as a one-off because we feel we have all of the assets we need to get through to profitability.”
Blammo Games will bring know-how in casual, social and mobile gaming. The two companies had already worked together through Glu’s gPartners program where both companies would collaborate on design, development, marketing and distribution. The Toronto-based company is run by Christopher Locke, who helped produce titles like Beeline Interactive’s Smurf’s Village and Zombie Cafe.
Glu is paying 1 million shares of common stock, worth $4.6 million at today’s share price, and up to 3.3 million more shares (worth $15.2 million at today’s price) for Blammo if the company meets certain earnout targets. Glu also allocated more than 1 million shares to retain and incentivize the new employees coming on-board from the acquisitions.
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:41 pm
[...] Glu is paying 1 million shares of common stock, worth $4.6 million at today’s share price, and up to 3.3 million more shares (worth $15.2 million at today’s price) for Blammo if the company meets certain earnout targets. Glu also allocated more than 1 million shares to retain and incentivize the new employees coming on-board from the acquisitions.（source:insidemobileapps） [...]
August 4th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
[...] Mobile has had a major restructuring following the acquisition of two gaming studios, as the company continues to ramp up its smartphone gaming [...]
August 8th, 2011 at 8:45 am
[...] определенного типа компанией Apple. Кроме того, Glu купила две мобильные студии помельче: Griptonite Games и Blammo [...]
August 8th, 2011 at 11:47 am
[...] to be outdone, the mobile gaming sector was also busy last week, with Glu acquiring not one but two mobile games developers — Griptonite Games and Blammo Games — and [...]
August 10th, 2011 at 10:30 am
[...] Glu Mobile Acquires Griptonite, Blammo Games for Stock, Earnouts Worth More Than $50M [...]
August 11th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
[...] Artist — Settimi joins Glu Mobile this week. He was previously an environment artist for recently acquired Griptonite [...]
August 18th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
[...] Sean Fear, Associate Producer — Fear joins Glu Mobile this week. He was previously an associate producer under the acquired Griptonite Games. [...]
August 19th, 2011 at 8:25 am
[...] Sean Fear, Associate Producer — Fear joins Glu Mobile this week. He was previously an associate producer under the acquired Griptonite Games. [...]
November 3rd, 2011 at 5:48 pm
[...] Glu said it may bring in between $16 and 17 million in revenue this quarter, based on non-generally accepted accounting principles. Smartphone revenue may come in at between $11.5 and $12 million while Glu’s net loss may widen to between $6.3 and $7.2 million. The company said the two acquisitions will start to pay off next year, when Griptonite will bring six titles to market in the first half. Blammo will start shipping games aroun… [...]
January 3rd, 2012 at 2:25 pm
[...] charts with its newest game, Stardom: The A-List. Developed by Blammo, the studio Glu Mobile acquired back in August, the game is this week’s No.47 highest grossing iPad app. The game is a tabloid-news inspired RPG [...]