Rovio to go public "in the next few years"

Angry Birds developer Rovio is looking to make an initial public stock offering on Nasdaq "in the next few years", according to company chairman Kaj Hed.

"We probably want to be in a marketplace that is as liquid as possible, which would probably mean Nasdaq is our stock exchange of choice," he said in a Bloomberg interview. "If we can do it in the next few years, that would be great."

"We are working exactly according to plan, we're releasing a lot of new games, there's 'Rio' coming out next week, that's going to be a big thing," said Hed. "There's a lot of new development happening on the studio side and the business development side."

The Finnish developer secured $42 million in funding earlier in the month, as it also named Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstroem to its board.

The company also recently revealed that downloads for Angry Birds, including free versions of the game, had reached 100 million. Despite development costs of just $140,000 the game has now generated revenues of $70 million from various sources.

Rumours have put Rovio's market valuation at around €200 million, although Hed himself has dismissed this figure as "speculation". However, he has predicted €5 million in revenues and €3 million of profit for the company's second half financial results.