Last week Mail.Ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet giant, announced that it acquired a majority stake —51% — in Russian mobile games developer Bit.Games. The amount of the deal has not been disclosed.
Mail.Ru Group said it will provide the team with access to all of its resources, including development, analytics and marketing, “to fuel the development of Bit.Games projects on the domestic market and beyond,” as stated by Vasily Maguryan, who heads the group’s games division.
“We are glad that Bit.Games has joined Mail.Ru Group. This is one of the most talented companies in the field, and we are convinced that our cooperation will enrich the experience of Mail.Ru Group’s Games Division in the field of mobile development,” he added.
The company will continue working independently on its new mobile action RPG game, the Guild of Heroes. The latter already claims over seven million installations worldwide, while its annual revenue exceeded $1 million as of March 2018.
Founded in 2002, Bit.Games employs 70 people. The startup came to fame thanks to its game Little Helper, which has attracted over ten million social media users in Russia. Among the other games offered by the company are Cinderella Story and Treasure Diving.
Mail.Ru Group has been extremely active over the past weeks: it launched an online pharmacy, announced a subsidiary to invest in foodtech; invested in taxi-hailing service Citymobil; and fully acquired ESforce, a leader in the Russian eSports industry.
