One year after being acquired for $4.4 billion by a Chinese consortium led by game developer Giant Interactive, Playtika today announced that it had completed the acquisition of Israeli company Jelly Button, its 10th acquisition, for a sum in the tens of millions of dollars. The acquisition is part of Playtika's strategy of diversifying its games catalogue and leading the table games market. The acquisition price is in the tens of millions of dollars.
Playtika's three leading games were acquired shortly after they were launched: World Series of Poker, Bingo Bliltz, and House of Fun. All three games are regularly rated as the most profitable games in the applications stores of Google, Apple Inc., and Facebook.
Jelly Button acquired a wide reputation in the social games industry with casual games that attract tens of millions of users. Founded in 2011, the company has over 80 million downloads and proven experience in developing high-quality games. Jelly Button has 80 employees at its Tel Aviv headquarters. Jelly Button has raised just $1.5 million to date.
Playtika cofounder and CEO Robert Antokol said, “Since our first acquisition in 2012, Playtika has been successful at identifying promising products and teams and leveraging our marketing, monetization, and analytics capabilities to materially grow our acquired businesses. Jelly Button has exactly that - a great team and great products - and we are excited to take Jelly Button’s games to the next level.”
“As an Israeli company and a mobile games company, we have long been amazed by Playtika’s success. This is an incredible opportunity to leverage their resources and expertise in monetization and combine them with our creativity,” said Jelly Button CEO, Ron Saranga. “Ultimately, the biggest beneficiaries of this transaction are our players.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on October 2, 2017
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