French mobile studio Oh BiBi secures $21m for future titles
Funding round led by Supercell and Rovio investor Atomico
Oh BiBi has completed a Series B funding round to the tune of $21 million, thanks primarily to regular games investor Atomico.
The latter has previously funded the likes of Supercell, Rovio, Teatime and Bossa Studios, and has now led financing for the French mobile studio, along with fellow investor Korelya.
The Paris-based developer was formed in 2012 and has released seven games since, including 2017's Sup Multiplayer Racing, which has generated $13 million in revenue over the past year. The studio was founded by Martial Valery and Stanislas Dewarvin, who previously led development on some of Gameloft's biggest hits, such as Minion Rush and Asphalt.
The funding will be used to continue developing new games and exploring the studio's goal of creating console-style experiences on mobile devices. Most notably, upcoming title Frag hopes to capitalise on the popularity of Fortnite and Overwatch by delivering a hero-based team shooter. The game is currently in soft launch.
"When we started working on Frag six months ago, we knew there was no reason why a shooter game could not dominate the top grossing rankings for mobile games," said Valery. "Now Fortnite has demonstrated it was possible, we're ready to challenge their claim for best mobile shooter and with Atomico onboard, as one of the most active VCs investing in the games sector today, we are well equipped to scale and looking forward to the challenge."
Dewarvin adds that the funding will also be used to "hire the very best of the best in our industry" as the studio plans to expand.
"When we published our games investment thesis we identified a huge trend in mobile games will be around PC and console game genres that historically haven't made the successful transition to mobile," said Atomico partner Mattias Ljungman. "We believe there is an opportunity there to create deeper, more engaging games on mobile, that keep players coming back for more and we believe that Oh BiBi is the best games company in the industry to tackle this challenge.
"We know from our experience with prior games investments such as Supercell how special the Oh BiBi team is and we can't wait to support them on the next stage of their journey."