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Animoca Brands soars on Finnish tablet game pioneer acquisition - TechInvest Magazine Online

Written by Staff Writers | Feb 7, 2018 11:13:10 AM

Mobile game publisher Animoca Brands gained as much as 24% today after acquiring Tribeflame, a Finland-based company which published more than a dozen mobile games including the popular franchise Benji Bananas.

The acquisition gives Animoca Brands full ownership of all Tribeflame and Benji Bananas mobile applications and games including Racecar, Tropical Resort, Benji Bananas, Benji Bananas Adventures, Waypoint Warriors, and many others.

Consideration for Tribeflame Oy and its subsidiary Benji Bananas Oy includes an upfront €50,000 (A$78,000), €50,000 (A$78,000) deferred payment and payments of €100,001 (A$157,000) over time based on the revenue earned by Tribeflame Oy. There are also earn-out payments of up to €150,000 (A$235,000), payable in 2020 in cash or shares.

Benji Bananas has been downloaded more than 107 million times and has 1.5 million monthly active users. Together with its sequels, it has generated approximately A$3.5 million in gross revenues.

Founders of Tribeflame, Torulf Jernström and Marcus Alanen, will also join Animoca Brands following the transaction.

The acquisition is expected to accelerate the development of the Android version of Crazy Defense Heroes, the company’s latest tower defense and collectible card mobile title that generated over A$467,000 revenue in its first two weeks of limited release on the App Store in select Asian territories.

The acquisition is expected to complete on 8 February 2018.

Tribeflame is the second Finnish game company acquired by Animoca Brands, following the purchase of TicBits Oy in July 2016.

Shares in Animoca Brands hit an intraday high of 7.7c, up 24%, before cooling to 7.2c, up16%, in early afternoon trade.