InvestGame tracked 13 deals worth $48.2m this week. 5 closed. Below are the top 9.
Devolver Digital leaves AIM at £0.16 a share, five years after a £1.57 IPO, at ~0.6x revenue
US-based indie games publisher Devolver Digital (AIM: DEVO) is leaving the London stock market. Shareholders voted 90% in favor of canceling the AIM listing from Sep 16, 2026. Alongside the vote, Devolver bought back 4.71% of its shares for $5.0m (GBP 3.7m). The founders, CEO Harry Miller, COO Graeme Struthers, and Nigel Lowrie, hold 31.45% pre-offer, rising to about 33% after the buyback completion. The exit was offered to everyone else at £0.16 per share. That was the closing price on Aug 5, the day before the plan was announced, so at spot with no premium. Shareholders tendered more shares than the $5.0m could purchase, so the offer was scaled back, and each seller sold only part of their holdings. Devolver’s shares are no longer quoted on a public market. A second buyback of up to $5.0m is planned within a year.
The board explains the decision with three reasons:
Listing costs of ~$1.6m a year.
A share that barely traded, ~33,000 shares a day in the three months before the announcement.
A valuation that the directors say does not reflect the business.
At £0.16 per share, Devolver’s equity is valued at $102.0m (GBP 75.6m). The latest reported balance sheet, as of Dec 31, 2025, shows $36.6m of cash and no debt. Since then, Devolver has paid $4.9m in cash toward System Era’s deferred consideration, with a further $2.1m remaining payable in cash and shares. On that pro forma basis, the Enterprise Value is ~$77m. Against FY25 revenue of $107.9m, that is 0.7x EV/Revenue, and 6.8x adj. EBITDA of $11.4m before impairments (10.9x on the $7.1m defined adj. EBITDA, which includes impairments). The business has moved on since: a Jun 26 trading update guided H1’26 revenue at least 60% above H1’25’s $38.8m, with adj. EBITDA in the mid-single-digit millions. That implies that through Jun 30, 2026, there will be at least $131m in revenue and ~$16m in adj. EBITDA, so ~0.6x revenue and ~4.7x adj. EBITDA.
Looking back, Devolver floated in Nov’21 at £1.57 per share, a $950m (GBP 694.6m) market capitalization. It was the second-largest AIM admission by value at the time. Sony (TSE: 6758) took 5% at the float, and NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) stayed on the register. The current exit price of £0.16 per share is 89.8% below the IPO price of £1.57 per share.
The share price tells the operating story. Revenue peaked in FY22, the year after the IPO, at the tail of the pandemic boom in premium PC & Console games. It fell by a third in FY23 as the release slate thinned, and the shares lost most of their value in those two years. Cash went into the System Era acquisition in Nov’23, $22m upfront and up to $40m in total, for the studio behind Astroneer. It also went into a heavier pipeline of own-IP games, which Devolver capitalizes on and releases over several years. The back catalog, which accounts for most of the revenue, grew by 20% in 2024 but has been shrinking in alternating years. New releases carried FY25 instead. Fifteen launches led by the roguelike BALL x PIT more than tripled front-catalog revenue and made H2’25 the strongest half of adj. EBITDA since 2022. That recovery arrived after the market had stopped paying for it. Headcount followed the same arc. The group had 210 team members around the IPO and 303 at the end of 2023, after System Era added 56. It ended 2025 with 270, after cuts at Nerial, Artificer, and Good Shepherd. The exit values Devolver at ~$287k of Enterprise Value per team member.
Devolver is the second listed games publisher to leave a European market this year. Atari (PAR: ALATA) took Sweden-based Thunderful Group to 90.2% through a $3.8m (SEK 35m) rescue share issue at SEK 0.10 a share. It then delisted Thunderful from Nasdaq First North on Feb 24, 2026, and began a compulsory buyout of the minority. Devolver joins a wider exit: the number of companies listed in London fell from 2,429 in 2015 to 1,534 in May 2026.
Notable Transactions
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
South Korea-based games developer Align Studio, a newly formed studio backed by Kakao Games (KOSDAQ: 293490), is acquiring the ArcheAge IP and the ArcheAge S development business from South Korea-based XL Games for $29.2m (KRW 39.2bn). The seller is a 52.82%-owned subsidiary of Kakao Games, and the closing is set for Oct 27, 2026. The transfer covers the trademarks, copyrights, and domains of the 2013 MMORPG. It also covers the 92-person team building ArcheAge S: Strait of Freedom, a new PC MMORPG in the franchise closer to the original ArcheAge than ArcheAge Chronicles, for a 2027 launch on Steam. XL Games keeps the online action RPG ArcheAge Chronicles, which it plans to self-publish. XL Games is selling to raise liquidity and repair its balance sheet. XL Games reported H1’26 revenue of $4.8m (KRW 6.4bn), down 48.3% YoY, and an operating loss of $15.1m (KRW 20.3bn). Founder Jake Song, who created Lineage at NCSOFT before founding XL Games in 2003, left the studio in early 2025.
South Korea-based blockchain and mobile games company NEXUS (KOSDAQ: 205500) is acquiring an additional 800,000 shares (approximately 3.52%) of South Korea-based app marketplace One Store for an undisclosed sum from telecom operators KT (KRX: 030200) and LG Uplus (KRX: 032640). NEXUS bought 89.03% of One Store for $40.7m in Jun’26, taking its stake to about 92.5%, though press reports put the new holding at 95.88%. In a concurrent transaction, NEXUS has issued 2,151,443 new shares, 2.51% of the company, at KRW 1,765 a share. The $2.8m (KRW 3.8B) came from KT, LG Uplus, and the blockchain security firm CertiK, subject to a one-year lock-up. One Store, the Android app store built by South Korea’s mobile carriers and Naver (KRX: 035420), becomes the distribution layer for NEXUS’s onchain gaming platform CROSS, which is being rebranded as One. CertiK joins as a validator.
UK-based games developer and publisher LEGO Digital Play has acquired UK-based mobile games developer Offroad Games for an undisclosed sum. Offroad makes the car-restoration match-3 Chrome Valley Customs. It is the first acquisition by LEGO Digital Play, formed in Feb’25 under President Aaron Loeb, formerly Chief Business Officer at Scopely. Offroad was founded in 2025 after Supercell bought Space Ape Games outright in Nov’24. CEO Geoffrey Gilles, who ran Chrome Valley Customs at Space Ape, founded it with CTO Christopher Jubb. The 17-person team took Chrome Valley Customs, live since Jun’23, and the arcade shooter Fastlane: Road to Revenge with it. It has now joined LEGO Digital Play, where Gilles becomes Head of Studio, and Chrome Valley Customs continues under the Offroad label.
US-based social-world operator Pocket Worlds has acquired the 3D mobile social world Hotel Hideaway from Finland-based Sulake, maker of Habbo, for an undisclosed sum. Launched in 2018, Hotel Hideaway has more than 32 million registered users and around 300,000 monthly active players, built around fashion, collecting, and live community events. It joins Highrise, Pocket Worlds’ own social world, and the avatar community Everskies, bringing the combined portfolio to over 80 million registered users. Sulake, owned by the Netherlands-based ad-tech and games company Azerion (AMS: AZRN) since 2021, will continue to support Habbo and Habbo Hotel: Origins.
VENTURE FINANCING
Japan-based creator-platform operator pixiv has made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount in US-based social VR platform VRChat, as part of a capital-and-business alliance. pixiv already supplies much of the avatar economy inside VRChat. Its free 3D avatar maker, VRoid Studio; its sharing platform, VRoid Hub; and its creator marketplace, BOOTH, are sources of many VRChat avatars. BOOTH’s 3D model category surpassed JPY 10B in transaction value in 2025. VRChat counts more than 250,000 active communities, around 100,000 average daily concurrent users, and a peak above 160,000. VRChat last raised an $80m Series D led by Anthos Capital in Jun’21.
India-based gaming hardware company ARC has raised $1.1m (INR 105m) in a pre-Seed round. Chimera VC and MIXI Global Investments, the venture arm of Japan-based MIXI (TSE: 2121), led the round. Dhruv Vohra, Director for Asia Pacific at Meta, invested personally. Founded in 2025 by Jobin Joseph and Kaustubh K. Jadhav, ARC is building the ARC X1, a handheld console built on an ARM-based architecture powered by Qualcomm technology, designed to support Android gaming, PC-game compatibility, and cloud gaming. It runs ARC’s own Android-based OwlOS, with a Proton layer for PC games. Proceeds fund hardware engineering, manufacturing readiness, and OwlOS development.
PUBLIC OFFERINGS
[CONSUMER APPS / NON-GAMING] Türkiye-based consumer apps company HubX has signed a non-binding letter of intent with UK-based SPAC Daedalus Special Acquisition (NASDAQ: DSAC). The combination would list HubX on Nasdaq. Daedalus raised $250m in its Dec’25 IPO and set out consumer AI as its target sector. Its co-CEOs are Akin Babayigit, co-founder of Tripledot Studios and an investor in Peak Games, Dream Games, and Gram Games. The other co-CEO, Orkun Kilic, was Managing Partner of Paulson Europe, the London arm of John Paulson’s hedge fund Paulson & Co. that ran the Paulson European Opportunities Fund, until 2019. HubX was founded in 2022 by Cem and Kaan Ortabaş and runs more than 40 AI-native apps with 600 million downloads. On Aug 31, it took up to $75m from Point72 Private Investments ($50m initial investment and an option for the additional $25m investment) at a $1.2B pre-money valuation, its first outside capital.
UA FINANCING
Singapore-based UA financing platform PvX Partners has agreed to two user-acquisition financing deals with app developers in Vietnam within two weeks of each other. Vietnam-based mobile casual games developer Skylink Studio has secured up to $12m in non-dilutive growth financing. The funds back its “Classic Games” tile-matching lineup, led by Tile Pyramid and Tile Bloom, with Tile Pyramid at over 500K installs on Google Play. It also funds new genres such as jigsaw puzzles. Vietnam-based consumer apps company Tevo has secured $10m from PvX Partners on Sep 8, 2026. Tevo previously took an undisclosed Seed round from EZTech and UX Foundation in Sep’25.
EARNINGS REPORTS
(1) Close-to-close move from the last close before the release to the release-day close, both companies reporting before the open. Source: company releases and exchange closes.
Frontier Developments reported record profit for the year to May 31, 2026: adj. operating profit of $28.9m (GBP 21.4m), up 62%, on revenue of $141m (GBP 104.8m), up 16%, with the creative-management simulations Jurassic World Evolution 3, Planet Coaster 2 and Planet Zoo at 89% of revenue against 77% a year earlier. Cash closed the year at $59.4m (GBP 44.0m) after $20.9m (GBP 15.5m) of buybacks and $2.7m (GBP 2.0m) of employee-trust share purchases, and the board declared a $6.8m (GBP 5.0m) special dividend of 14.1 pence a share. Shore Capital upgraded the shares to Buy with a GBX 650 target on the results, and Berenberg kept Buy at GBX 600. Founder David Braben moves from Executive to Non-Executive Director and remains President.
Gamehaus reported Q4’FY26 revenue of $24.3m, down 20.8% YoY after it cut user-acquisition spend across its casual mobile portfolio, with net income of $0.9m and FY26 revenue of $104.7m, down 11.4%. It guided Q1’FY27 revenue to $20m-$23m and will shift resources from the mobile portfolio to AI-generated content starting in FY27.
Public Market Performance
It was a negative week for the tracked universe: 26 rose, 35 fell, and 1 was flat, with a median move of (0.7%), over the Friday, Sep 4, to Friday, Sep 11 window.
Share Price Signals
Everplay Group (AIM: EVPL) (+30.26%) rose after its tactical shooter Wardogs, developed by Bulkhead and published under the Team17 label, sold more than one million copies on its first day in Steam Early Access on Sep 10. Shore Capital kept its Buy and GBX 430 target, reading the launch as proof of the group’s content and partnership model, and Consensus points to FY26 revenue of GBP 175.3m and adj. EBITDA of GBP 50.7m, against GBP 48.5m in FY25. Half-year results follow on Sep 15.
Frontier Developments (AIM: FDEV) (+15.01%) rose on its FY26 results on Sep 9: revenue up 16% to GBP 104.8m and a record adj. operating profit of GBP 21.4m, up 62%, with creative-management simulations now 89% of revenue, plus a 14.1 pence special dividend. Shore Capital upgraded the shares to Buy with a GBX 650 target on the results, and Berenberg reiterated Buy with a GBX 600 target. The week also carried the Sep 3 announcement of a self-funded game on Disney IP, which the results call did not price separately.
Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) (-6.04%) fell after two Direct presentations on Sep 8 and Sep 9, the Zelda 40th anniversary show and the winter line-up, left the Switch 2 holiday slate resting on remasters such as Pikmin 4 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, with no new 3D Mario and with Metroid Ravenous and a new 3D Kirby pushed to 2027. The one dated new release is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 on Nov 5, 2026. The ADR fell 5.8% on Sep 9, and the Tokyo shares fell 4.9% the next session.
Earnings Calendar: The Week Ahead
Dates are as scheduled by the issuers and remain subject to change. Source: issuer financial calendars and RNS notices.