Mika Games gets $10M boost to support mobile game developers

Mika Games, a gaming
investment company founded by Wargaming co-founder Nick Katselapov, has raised
$10 million in a funding round led by Flint Capital, with participation from
several new and existing investors.

Early-stage mobile game
studios often struggle to secure financing for user acquisition, as funding
providers typically require an established marketing track record. This can
include several months of campaign data, between $300,000 and $500,000 in previous
marketing spending, and evidence of predictable returns.

Mika Games aims to address
this gap by investing in studios before their user acquisition performance has
been fully established. Its model combines equity investment to support product
development and studio operations with separate capital for larger paid
marketing campaigns. These campaigns help studios assess player retention,
monetisation and marketing payback periods, potentially enabling them to secure
additional financing for growth.

Nick Katselapov, founder
of Mika Games, noted that rising user acquisition spending and fewer new titles
reaching top download rankings are making it harder for new mobile games to
gain visibility.

Early marketing capital
can therefore influence which games players ever get to discover. Our aim is to
give new titles enough runway to reach players,

said Katselapov.

Mika Games has expanded
its portfolio from three to five game studios this year. Its existing
investments include Guli Games, developer of the 3D farming adventure
Legendale, which has reached more than 3 million players worldwide, and
Agonalea Games, whose roguelike tower defence game Punko has surpassed 500,000
downloads.

The company has also
invested in Bulberry Studio, developer of Wargard, a mobile strategy game
combining deck building with direct troop control in player-versus-player
battles, and LevelApp, which develops merge-2 games including Merge Dale and
Sea Bloom.

The new funding will be
used to support product development and larger-scale marketing campaigns,
helping portfolio studios test their games’ commercial performance and expand
their user bases.