Spanish startup UnusuAll raises $3.6 million in a funding round led by Free Fire publisher Garena. The startup, led by experienced gaming industry members, has yet to release any games.
UnusuAll was formed in 2020 by former members of King’s Barcelona studio. The studio is led by CEO David Picon, former head of King’s studio. Alongside him is Fatima Monllor, former principal games designer. Joining them is Olga del Pozo who has a long history as a Creative Director in many companies. Rounding out the team is Ignacio Martinez who, among many other positions, was a Lead Game Developer at King and Lead Programmer at Voodoo.io.
Speaking about the funding, Picon stated that their goal is to create unusual games, hence the name. He added that their experience will allow them to create innovative casual games. Along with this, their focus will be highly accessible social experiences.
Picon continued, expressing his excitement about the partnership with Garena and the players they can reach with their support. As a result of the funding, the team plans to launch their first game and expand the team. They hope to add around 20 team members in the next 12 months.
Garena Continues Investing
Investing in UnusuAll isn’t shocking as Garena has a history of funding startups. Most recently, they were a part of the funding for Double Loop Games in May of 2021. Likewise, Garena also invested and acquired a minor stake in PopScreen Games in January of 2021.
Furthermore, Garena has dabbled in acquisitions as well. In January of 2020, they acquired Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs for $150 million. The driving force behind the deal was expanding Dauntless into the Asian Market.
The Massive Battle Royale Hit
Garena is known for its hit battle royale game Garena Free Fire. As we reported in July 2021, the action game celebrated passing 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store. This made it the first game of the battle royale genre to pass that milestone.
Sea Limited, Garena’s parent company, reported that the game had an astounding 100+ million peak daily active users in August of 2020. As a result, App Annie reported that it was the most downloaded game of 2020.
Conversely, the game did massive numbers on social media in 2020 as well. According to the report from Sea, all of the Garena Free Fire videos on YouTube received over 72 billion views combined. To add to this, the game’s esports scene is also booming. Almost 2.5 million concurrent viewers watched their Free Fire Continental Series finals.
Sensor Tower reported that Garena Free Fire had revenue of $100 million in Q1 in the US alone. Taking that into account, it is safe to speculate that the publisher has funds for investing. It is just a matter of time when a new announcement of funding or an acquisition pops up.
Interested in more? Check out our Blog or feel free to contact us!
Comments