Digital Bros acquires Assetto Corsa dev for €4.3 million in cash and stock
Kunos Simulazioni's racing sim was launched on consoles by the Italian publisher last year
The Italian publisher Digital Bros has acquired Kunos Simulazioni, the studio behind the racing sim Assetto Corsa, in a cash and stock deal.
Digital Bros bought 100% of Kunos Simulazioni for €2.75 million in cash, half of which will be paid immediately and half in exactly one year from the closing date. An additional €1.59 million will be paid in the form of 150,000 new shares in Digital Bros., bring the total value of the deal to exactly €4,341,500.
The two companies, both of which are based in Italy, have an existing relationship thanks to Assetto Corsa, which was published on console by Digital Bros subsidiary 505 Games. The racing sim was initially self-published on PC in December 2014, averaging a review score of 85% according to Metacritic. The console launch, which was greeted less enthusiastically by critics, followed in August 2016.
"With this acquisition, Digital Bros Group intends to grow further as a game publisher and developer, capable of achieving success worldwide and of always being ready to satisfy the needs of an increasingly demanding public," the company said in a statement. It also stressed the sequel potential of the Assetto Corsa IP.
In the same statement, Digital Bros revealed that Kunos Simulazioni reported €3.3 million in revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015, of which €1.7 million was profit. That financial performance will have largely been down to the PC version of Assetto Corsa.
In a post on Facebook, Kunos Simulazioni's Marco Massarutto said that both he and his co-founder, Stefano Casillo, would be staying at the company in their current positions. The tone of Massarutto's post was somewhat defensive, as a way to reassure its audience that it would be "keeping the same policy, strategies, DNA, development team, goals."
"Before [you] scream in any direction that 'Kunos has been bought, the world is over,' please sit down, breathe and think. Because the only news you should be interested is that, by [sic] today, we have more resources, time and power to do our job, even better than before.
"So: think easier, live better, stay strong. The future is bright."