Jam City, a mobile entertainment company, completed the acquisition of mobile game studio Ludia from Fremantle for $165 million. In connection with the acquisition, Jam City raised $350 million in equity and debt financing from Netmarble, Kabam and affiliates of funds managed by Fortress Investment Group. The financing round is Jam City’s largest to date.
South Korea-based Netmarble previously led a $130 million equity investment in Jam City in 2015. Subsequently, in 2019, Jam City raised $145 million in strategic financing led by a bank syndicate including joint lead arrangers JPMorgan and Bank of America, Merrill Lynch with Silicon Valley Bank, Truist Securities and CIT Bank.
Jam City will use proceeds from the financing to help further its strategy to build out its portfolio of bold, innovative and novel studios from around the globe.
“The synergy between Ludia’s imagination, polish and innovative game mechanics with Jam City’s data science platform creates the perfect marriage between our two companies and adds significant value to their deep, rich entertainment experiences,” Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of Jam City, said. “The latest round of funding solidifies our strategy of acquiring great companies across the globe and heavily investing in our current studios to build enduring entertainment experiences that rival blockbuster Hollywood hits.”
“With a growing portfolio of evergreen titles and the company’s most ambitious slate of upcoming games in the company’s history, it was time for Ludia to find the right strategic partner,” Alex Thabet, co-founder and CEO of Ludia, said. “Jam City is the perfect home to achieve the full growth potential ahead of us.”
“We are pleased to support Jam City in its acquisition of Ludia. The combined business has a strong, diversified portfolio of mobile games driven by both owned and licensed IP and is well-positioned to remain a market leader,” Ian Schnider, managing director at Fortress Credit Funds, said.
Ludia’s growing portfolio of mobile games includes the Jurassic World games (Jurassic World: The Game, Jurassic World Alive) and upcoming DC and Disney titles.
Jam City’s acquisition of Ludia continues to fulfill the company’s mission to bolster its global portfolio of top studios that develop and publish top-grossing, internally-developed and third-party licensed IP-based games.
Since 2014, Jam City has won Best Game awards from Apple, Facebook, Google and Pocket Gamer, in addition to a Media Excellence award and Writer’s Guild award nomination. Prior to the Ludia acquisition, Jam City achieved double-digit compound annual growth in both bookings and profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis for the past five years through 2020.
