Drake Star Partners: Gaming Investments in 2023
Gaming investments returned to the pre-COVID timing.
2023 Results
The total deal value in 2023 amounted to $86 billion. However, if we exclude the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, the deal size amounted to $20 billion - similar to pre-pandemic times.
In 2023, there were 163 merger and acquisition deals with a total value of $10.5 billion. The leader was Savvy Games Group with a deal with Scopely ($4.9B). Also notable were deals between the Goldman Sachs consortium and Kahoot ($1.7B); Tencent and Techland ($1.6B).
There were 44 M&A deals for PC/consoles; 37 for mobile; and 25 for platforms. Business activity, overall, returned to pre-COVID levels.
In terms of VC investments, over 750 deals were made totaling $3.5 billion. In 2020, there were similar deals totaling $3.4 billion, excluding the Epic Games round. Most investments were in mobile companies (168), followed by blockchain companies (159) and platforms (143). Among the most notable transactions were VSPO ($265 million), Candivore ($100 million), and Second Dinner ($100 million).
Bitkraft, a16z, Play Ventures, and Griffin Gaming were the most active VC funds in gaming deals.
Q4 2023 Results
There were 43 announced M&A deals in the fourth quarter. There were 33 in the previous quarter. The most notable deals were between Aonic and nDreams; Keywords and The Multiplayer Group; MTG and Snowprint; Devolver Digital and System Era.
In the fourth quarter, there were 162 VC deals, at pre-COVID levels. The most notable were at Animoca Brands ($50 million), Leonardo.AI ($47 million), Strikerz ($40 million), and ON ($25 million). Over 85% of the money went to seed and early stages. Investors still fear late-stage investment rounds.
Drake Star Partners notes a 13% increase in the valuations of public companies. There was also a significant public offering - Singapore's Grand Centrex Limited (GCL) went public on NASDAQ through SPAC with a valuation of $1.2 billion.