IVP Co-Leads $130 Million Financing in Supercell : Institutional Venture Partners
1. IVP Co-Leads $130 Million Financing in Supercell :
Institutional Venture Partners
Sandy Miller and Eric Liaw Will Serve as Board Observers
Menlo Park, CA - April 17, 2013 - Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) announced today that it has
co-led $130 million financing in Supercell, a leading global mobile games company. IVP and Index
Ventures co-led the round with equal investments and were joined by Atomico. The round valued the
company at $770 million. IVP is the company's only US investor and Sandy Miller, General Partner
at IVP, and Eric Liaw, Principal at IVP, will serve as Board Observers.
Supercell is a rapidly growing mobile game company focused on delivering highly entertaining titles
with a tablet-first approach. The company began developing games for tablets in 2011 and has since
released two titles via Apple's App Store-a tower defense game called Clash of Clans and a social-farming
game called Hay Day. Since their release in the summer of 2012, both of Supercell's titles
have been fixtures among the top 5 grossing apps on the App Store, leading to the company's strong
financial performance, which includes generating $100 million in revenue in 2012. Supercell's
momentum has accelerated in 2013, with first quarter revenue of $179 million and net income of
$104 million exceeding the total for 2012. Supercell's 8.5 million daily players each play on average
ten times and spend collectively $2.4 million per day.
In addition to its staggering performance, Supercell is pursuing a unique approach to company
culture and game development. New game concepts are created by small teams ("cells") of 5 - 7
employees working independently, allowing Supercell to simultaneously develop, test, and also halt
multiple new projects.
IVP's Sandy Miller commented, "IVP has been investing in the gaming sector for a long time, with
ngmoco and Zynga as our recent great successful investments in this market. We were very
impressed with Supercell's passionate management team and explosive metrics. We are very excited
to partner with the company in this hypergrowth stage and our investment will strengthen the
company's ability to continue on a successful independent path."
IVP's Eric Liaw added, "With an emphasis on core values of creativity, flexibility, transparency, and
teamwork, Supercell is focused on not only building highly entertaining games but also a culture
2. that will enable the company to thrive and prosper for years to come. The company's approach has
resulted in the release of titles that have been well-received by gamers in all over the world and we
are thrilled to join the team in the next phase of their growth."
Based in Helsinki, Finland, with North American operations in San Francisco, Supercell was founded
by games industry veterans who have collectively developed more than 165 games across 12
platforms.
About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
With $4 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage
venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has
invested in over 300 companies, 93 of which have gone public. IVP is one of the top performing firms
in the industry and has a 32-year IRR of 43.2%. IVP specializes in venture growth investments,
industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions and select public market investments. Since its
inception, IVP investments include such notable companies as ArcSight (HPQ), Buddy Media (CRM),
ComScore (SCOR), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Dropbox, Fleetmatics (FLTX), HomeAway (AWAY),
Juniper Networks (JNPR), Kayak (KYAK), LegalZoom, LifeLock (LOCK), Marketo, MySQL (ORCL),
Netflix (NFLX), Polycom (PLCM), Seagate (STX), Shazam, Synchronoss (SNCR), Tivo (TIVO), Twitter
and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit http://ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: @ivp
http://link.reuters.com/jem83v
