There’s definitely a mobile gaming boom going on in Turkey, much like there was in Finland in the early days of mobile.
Cypher Games has raised $3.2 million in pre-seed funding to develop casual mobile games. Founded in March, the Turkish company is one of many game studios making casual game titles in the country.
Play Ventures led the round, with 500 Global, Joakim Achrén (Founder of Next Games and Elite Game Developers) and Akin Babayigit (founder of Tripledot Studios) joiningthe round.
The company focuses on the next generation mobile puzzle games and aims to become a leading global
studio. The team previously has built Merge Barista together for Zerosum Games, acquired by Rollic in
2021.
CEO Anil Simsek said in a statement that the funding will be used to expand the team sixfold by early 2023 and to develop their first casual mobile game.
“Turkey has a huge talent base potential and we are rewarding a sizable stock option pool for our colleagues” Simsek said. “We believe in the cooperative success with involvement on equal grounds instead of a me-oriented approach. Therefore, we want our colleagues to be shareholders at our firm.”
After the launch of their first casual mobile game by early 2023, the company plans to open a new
office in Berlin to give its employees the opportunity work from anywhere.
“We are proud to lead the first investment round into Cypher Games as they begin their quest to become
a leading global casual gaming studio,” said Harri Manninen, the founding partner of Play Ventures, in a statement. “Turkish mobile gaming ecosystem is extremely strong and we are very happy to see young founders like the Cypher team emerging and joining the ranks of the existing players such as Peak, Dream and Bigger Games.”
Enis Hulli, general partner at 500 Global, said in a statement, “The success of the Turkish startup ecosystem in creating unicorns is a lagging metric. The leading indicator is strong teams building companies (like Cypher Games) and getting backed by leading global gaming funds. It’s still the very early days of the company, but it’s exhilarating to dream of what lies ahead and be a part of their journey.”
Akin Babayigit, cofounder of Tripledot Studios, added, “I am super excited to support Cypher games as they start on their exciting journey. I think it’s very obvious that Turkey is emerging as a gaming power house, and the team at Cypher really impressed me with the level of their ambition and motivation. I have no doubt we will all be reading up about them very soon. I feel privileged that they allowed me to be on
this journey.”
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