Huuuge plans to raise $150 million in Warsaw IPO

Social casino game developer Huuuge announced today that it expects to raise $150 million as part of its planned initial public offering on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. 

With this move, Huuuge is becoming part of the significant growth in the gaming IPOs. Playtika went public and secured $1.88 billion via IPO last week. 

Games investments reached $33.6 billion total deal value across 664 transactions in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic, according to InvestGame’s annual report. Mergers and acquisitions represented $12.6 billion across 219 deals in 2020. Mobile game companies accounted for the 61% of total deal value with $6.5B. Tencent, Zynga, Stillfront and Embracer accounted for 60% of the total deal value and became the key acquirers of 2020. In 2020, 11 game companies went public with $0.8B deal value.

Huuuge has had 4.74 million MAUs as of September 30, 2020, up from 3.98 million at the end of 2019. 

Huuuge generated consolidated revenue of $243.5 million in the first nine months of 2020, up 30% YoY  as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2019. The company has more than 600 employees in 10 offices around the world.

In the planned initial public offering, a number of investors and the company will sell shares. Those selling include Big Bets OÜ (Anton Gauffin, founder and CEO), RPII HGE (an entity controlled by The Raine Group), Naver KIP Cheer up Gamers Fund, Korea Investment Global Contents Fund (funds managed by Korea Investment Partners), Seoul Investment Patent Venture Fund, Seoul IP Growth Industry Venture Fund (funds managed by Seoul Investment Partners), and Woori Technology Investment. 

Huuuge’s biggest shareholder is now its founder and CEO Anton Gauffin, with shares representing 42% of total votes. Gauffin plans to retain a significant share of the company still.