InvestGame tracked 14 deals worth $242.3m this week. 4 closed. Below are the top 7.
Kakao Games acquires ~40% of social casino developer ME2ON at 3.2x the market price
South Korea-based mobile games developer and publisher Kakao Games (KOSDAQ: 293490) is acquiring 39.56% of South Korea-based social casino and casual games developer ME2ON (KOSDAQ: 201490) for $72.1m (KRW 98.0B) through two transactions its board approved on Sep 15. It is buying 7,011,390 existing shares, a 21.43% block, from founder and CEO Son Chang-wook and eight related parties at KRW 10,000 a share, $51.6m (KRW 70.1B) in total. ME2ON is also issuing 9,817,118 new shares at KRW 2,842 per share, totaling $20.5m (KRW 27.9B), of which KRW 19.2B funds working capital and KRW 8.7B repays debt. Together, the two transactions make Kakao Games the largest shareholder, with its own appointees replacing the board at closing. Both transactions settle on Nov 16, 2026, subject to Korea Fair Trade Commission clearance, and the new shares list on Dec 1.
The KRW 10,000 paid to the sellers is 3.2x the KRW 3,110 at which ME2ON closed on Sep 14, a 221.5% control premium. At the block price, ME2ON’s equity is valued at $240.7m (KRW 327.2B) on a 100% basis, 2.7x FY2025 revenue of $85.1m (KRW 120.9B), and 26.0x EBIT (operating profit) of $8.9m (KRW 12.6B). The day before the announcement, the market valued the same equity at $74.9m (KRW 101.8B), 0.8x revenue and 8.1x EBIT. By comparison, Netmarble (KOSPI: 251270) paid $2.19B for social casino developer SpinX Games in 2021 at ~5.0x revenue, and Aristocrat (ASX: ALL) paid $990m for Big Fish Games in 2017 at 2.2x revenue and 11.9x adj. EBITDA.
Founded in 2010 and listed on KOSDAQ in 2016, ME2ON develops the social casino apps Full House Casino, with more than 8 million App Store and Google Play downloads, Fulpot Poker, and Classic Vegas Casino, while its 45.1%-owned Ghost Studio (KOSDAQ: 950190) develops casual titles such as the card game TriPeaks Journey and the match-3 puzzle Match Miracle: Triple Match 3D. FY2025 revenue split: 61% games, $51.5m (KRW 73.3B), from ME2ON’s own social casino titles and the casual games of Ghost Studio; 31% talent management and drama production, $26.4m (KRW 37.5B), through Ghost Studio Entertainment; and 8% webtoon and web novel production and platforms, $7.1m (KRW 10.0B), through Bluepic and Metoon&Novel. North America accounted for 65% of games revenue in Q2’26. Revenue rose 28% in won terms in FY2025 after a 13% fall in FY2024, but EBIT fell every year from $30.1m (KRW 34.5B) in FY2021, a 31% margin, to $8.7m (KRW 11.8B) in FY2024, then recovered 7% in won terms to $8.9m (KRW 12.6B) in FY2025, a 10% margin. FY2025 marked the turn, continuing into H1’26: revenue of $35.2m (KRW 47.9B) with EBIT of $6.4m (KRW 8.7B), an 18% margin.
This is the first acquisition under Kakao Games’ new owners. Japan’s LY Corporation took control in June through a ~$370m restructuring and appointed co-CEOs Kim Tae-hwan, formerly of Nexon (TSE: 3659) and LINE Games, and Lee Si-woo. Kakao Games’ FY2025 revenue fell 26% to $327.0m (KRW 465.0B) with an operating loss of $27.9m (KRW 39.6B), and Kim told investors in August that the company was reviewing more than 10 domestic and international targets, starting with deals in the tens of billions of won rather than the hundreds of billions. As Lee stated, “This acquisition marks the first step in executing a merger and acquisition strategy with proven business feasibility and profitability under our new leadership, and Kakao Games will continue to pursue M&A for its future.” It follows the Kakao Games-backed Align Studio’s purchase of the ArcheAge MMORPG IP from XL Games for $29.2m (KRW 39.2B) the week before. We will keep tracking Kakao Games’ deal activity: two acquisitions in two weeks under new owners make it a new buyer on the M&A scene, and it now sits on InvestGame’s Active Strategic Buyers list.
Notable Transactions
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
UK-based games developer and publisher Everplay Group (AIM: EVPL) has increased its stake in Super Media Group, the parent of UK-based PC & Console games developer Bulkhead, from 20% to 28% for $2.7m (GBP 2.0m). It exercised an option agreed in Dec’25, when it subscribed for the first 20% as Bulkhead’s founders carved the studio out of Tencent-owned Splash Damage. Bulkhead’s Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer shooter Wardogs, published by Team17, sold more than 1 million copies on its first day in Early Access on Sep 10 and 2 million within five days, passed 400,000 concurrent players over its first weekend, and broke the group sales record Hell Let Loose: Vietnam had set weeks earlier. The step-up was disclosed with Everplay’s H1 FY26 results, in which the board now expects FY26 revenue and adj. EBITDA materially ahead of the $236.1m (GBP 175.2m) and $68.3m (GBP 50.7m) consensus. Everplay’s shares have risen 46.5% since the day before the launch, from 289p to 423.5p at the Sep 18 close.
Czech Republic-based PC & Console games developer and publisher Bohemia Interactive has acquired a minority stake in Poland-based games developer Enjoy Studio for an undisclosed sum, its first investment in a Polish studio. Bohemia publishes Enjoy’s co-op first-person survival RPG Everwind, which has sold more than 300,000 copies at $24.99 since entering Early Access on Mar 17, 2026, and the remastered platformer Space Tail: Definitive Edition, released in Aug’26. Founded in 2020 in Warsaw, Enjoy joined the Bohemia Incubator publishing program in 2024. The stake funds Everwind’s full release and console versions, with Enjoy keeping its creative independence.
VENTURE FINANCING
US-based family active-play console maker Nex has raised more than $150m in equity and debt, including a Series E co-led by Baillie Gifford and BAI Capital, with NBA Investments, Logitech (NASDAQ: LOGI), Medici Capital Partners and The Raine Group. Roughly half of the total is a new credit facility from J.P. Morgan. The Nex Playground motion-tracking console launched in Dec’23 and has sold at $299 since Apr’26 after two price increases driven by memory chip costs. It has sold more than 1 million units through 7,000 US stores, and its Play Pass subscriber base has grown 7x in 18 months to near 1 million. Founded in 2017 by CEO David Lee, the maker of the basketball-training app HomeCourt, Nex raised $40m by its $25m Series B in Sep’21 and, per Lee, turned profitable in 2025. The capital funds inventory and launches in Germany this year and in Japan and South Korea in 2027. Former Niantic CFO Jeff Shouger joins as CFO, and former EA chief creative officer Bing Gordon joins the board.
Israel-based database company Keewano has raised $12.0m in a Seed round led by Hetz Ventures, with a16z Speedrun, Remagine Ventures, DIG Ventures and angel investors. The round coincides with the general availability of KeewanoDB, an event-sequence database built for AI agents to investigate player behavior, churn, and retention. It stores every user’s full event history in order and queries 250 million events at once. Founded in 2024 in Tel Aviv by CEO Mark Kardashov, COO Dima Karger, a former general manager at Plarium, CTO Pavel Bibergal, Plarium’s former CTO, and Vitaly Bukhovsky, the 20-person team will use the funding to expand in the US.
India-based PC & Console publisher 1312 Interactive has raised $1.0m in a Seed round led by ChimeraVC and T-Accelerate Capital, with Ventana Ventures and angel investors, after an undisclosed pre-Seed round from angels in Feb’25 that InvestGame covered. Founded in 2024 in Hyderabad by Deepak Gurijala, the founder of Street Lamp Games, and Raviteja Mantena, 1312 targets six to eight indie and AA titles a year for global audiences. The 2.5D action-platformer Winds of Arcana: Ruination shipped in Nov’25 and the village romance RPG Palm Sugar: A Village Story in Aug’26, with the possession puzzle-adventure Souls of Bombarika and the co-op party game We Are So Cooked, now due in Jan’27. The capital funds marketing, QA, localization, and production support, and the launch of 1312 Playground, a community platform for early player testing.
PUBLIC OFFERINGS
Japan-based reward-marketing platform operator Skyfall (TSE: 625A) has listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market, raising $21.7m (JPY 3.46B) at JPY 1,500 per share, with SBI Securities, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings (TSE: 8473) as the lead underwriter. The offer comprised 1.1 million new shares and 1.2 million shares sold by existing holders, led by CEO Hasegawa Tomokazu, and valued Skyfall at $75.3m (JPY 12.0B). Shares opened 17.3% above the offer price and closed the first day at JPY 1,523, up 1.5%. Skyfall’s SKYFLAG platform sells reward ads to mobile games and apps that pay out only when a user completes an in-app action, and the company also runs the free-to-play Texas hold’em poker game, Poker Chase. Revenue grew 26% to $101.7m (JPY 16.2B) in the year to Sep’25, with net income of $2.8m (JPY 447m). Net primary proceeds of $9.6m (JPY 1.5B) fund hiring and marketing in the US and Europe from FY27, after a Korean entry in Aug’25.
EARNINGS REPORTS
Everplay Group reported H1 FY26 revenue of $90.1m (GBP 66.9m), down 8%, and adj. EBITDA of $12.4m (GBP 9.2m), down from $25.9m (GBP 19.2m), as Team17 revenue fell 16% on a release slate weighted to the second half while StoryToys grew 43% to $21.4m (GBP 15.9m). Cash was $76.9m (GBP 57.1m), and the interim dividend was 1.1p a share. The board expects FY26 revenue and adj. EBITDA materially ahead of the $236.1m (GBP 175.2m) and $68.3m (GBP 50.7m) consensus after the launch of Wardogs.
Huuuge Games reported Q2’26 revenue of $50.9m, down 13.4% YoY, adj. EBITDA of $19.8m at a 39% margin and cash of $137.0m at Jun 30, with direct-to-consumer sales at a record 42.5% of revenue. Guidance is unchanged for a slight FY26 revenue decline with the adj. EBITDA margin at least flat on 2025.
Public Market Performance
It was a mixed week for the tracked universe: of 61 eligible companies, 32 rose, and 29 fell, with a median move of 0.2% over the Friday, Sep 11 to Friday, Sep 18 window.
Share Price Signals
Everplay Group (+19.97%) rose over the week around its H1 FY26 results on Sep 15: revenue fell 8% to $90.1m (GBP 66.9m) and adj. EBITDA to $12.4m (GBP 9.2m) as Team17 revenue dropped 16% and StoryToys grew 43%, but the board guided FY26 revenue and adj. EBITDA materially ahead of market expectations on the multiplayer shooter Wardogs, which has sold more than 2 million copies since its Sep 10 Early Access launch. On Sep 18, RBC Capital Markets kept its outperform rating and raised its price target to 545p from 455p, lifting its FY revenue forecast 15% to $283.0m (GBP 211.3m) while pushing the game’s full release to 2028.
Huuuge Games (+9.26%) rose after its Q2’26 results on Sep 16: revenue fell 13.4% YoY to $50.9m against a $51m consensus, and adj. EBITDA was $19.8m at a 39% margin, with guidance unchanged for a slight FY26 revenue decline. The move followed the $120m share buyback announced with the results, equal to 164% of 2025 free cash flow, for up to 16.4 million shares at $7.30 a share, 36.7% of the share capital, and direct-to-consumer sales reaching a record 42.5% of revenue.
Remedy Entertainment (-7.53%) fell on Sep 18 as the review embargo for the action-adventure Control Resonant lifted six days before its Sep 24 launch: the game scored 84 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, 8/10 at IGN and 9/10 at GameSpot, and closed down 13.5%, one of the largest declines on the Helsinki exchange in that session.
11 bit studios (-5.96%) fell after BM Bank Millennium cut its price target to PLN 145.50 from PLN 167.00 on Sep 16, maintaining its accumulate rating, citing lower financial forecasts and an earlier cost underestimate, while noting $22.2m (PLN 84.6m) in net cash at the end of Q2’26.
Earnings Calendar: The Week Ahead
