Investment Validates Experience of Seasoned Co-founders as Former Leaders from Peak Games, Zynga and Riot Games and Breaks Records for Largest Seed Round in Turkey and Mobile Games Globally Led by Female CEO
ISTANBUL & LOS ANGELES, January 17, 2022–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Spyke Games, a social, mobile casual-games company, has closed $55M in a seed round led by notable venture capital firm, Griffin Gaming Partners (GGP). Spyke Games’ co-founding team has an unprecedented track record creating some of the world’s top mobile casual games with previous company exits valued at nearly $2B. This funding round for Spyke breaks records as the largest seed round raised by a female CEO in Turkey as well as globally in the mobile gaming industry.
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Spyke Games co-founders raise record-breaking $55M Seed round for social mobile games. [L-R] Remi Onur (COO), Mithat Madra (CMO), Rina Onur Sirinoglu (CEO), Fuat Coskun (CTO), Barkin Basaran (CPO) (Photo: Business Wire)
Due to officially launch their first game within a month, Spyke Games focuses on the mobile gaming market, which is the fastest growing industry segment, with $136B in gross bookings, according to IDG Consulting. Mobile gaming is estimated to grow 248% in the next 10 years, according to Newzoo.
Spyke’s Global Gaming Leadership
The co-founding team includes five gaming industry leaders who have built teams and developed many of the world’s top grossing global mobile titles which collectively amassed 9.5M DAU (daily active users) and $1B in revenue to date. The Spyke co-founding team were co-founders or executive team members at Peak Games, Zynga and Riot Games and include: CEO Rina Onur Sirinoglu, COO Remi Onur, CPO Barkin Basaran, CTO Fuat Coşkun and CMO Mithat Madra.
“Spyke Games’ phenomenal team came together after working at companies like Peak Games, Zynga and Riot Games where we identified significant opportunities emerging over the past 12 years in the social, mobile casual-games genre. We’re creating world-class games that connect and delight people, title-after-title,” said Rina Onur Sirinoglu CEO of Spyke Games, former co-founder of Peak Games and Founding Partner of 500 Istanbul. “And we know we can achieve this through our company culture, relentless focus on quality and inspiring joyful, emotional experiences.”
A games industry leader and business builder, Rina continues,”With two decades investing in gaming and entertainment, Griffin Gaming Partners provides Spyke with the best experience and connections in the industry resulting in significant growth opportunities. We’re inspired by Griffin’s confidence in our team and initial game as well as their willingness to jump in and help us take our venture to the next level.”
Griffin Gaming Partners is one of the world’s largest venture capital firms singularly focused on investing in the global gaming market. GGP invests in gaming content and infrastructure companies as well as Web3 gaming-related companies, with notable investments in Discord, Forte, AppLovin, Overwolf and WinZO.
“Spyke has the perfect combination of a deeply experienced team with proven success developing games and an unwavering focus on execution,” said Griffin Gaming Partner’s Managing Director Phil Sanderson, who is also a member of Spyke’s board of directors.
Spyke will use the funds to focus on the launch and continuous improvement of its initial game as well as to hire top talent from Turkey’s thriving technology and gaming ecosystem. According to Startups Watch, in 2021 Turkish startups raised a record $1.4B, and gaming startups raised more than $400M increasing the gaming talent pool.
About Griffin Gaming Partners
Griffin was founded by Peter Levin, Phil Sanderson and Nick Tuosto. The firm is founder-friendly, cares deeply for the gaming industry and brings decades of investment, advisory and operational experience. www.griffingp.com
About Spyke Games
Spyke’s mission is to create highly engaging emotional experiences through data-driven game design that combines visually stunning aesthetics, inviting characters and captivating game play to delight players solo or socially across the globe. Built by a team of dreamers and doers, Spyke believes that when talented people unite around a single mission and are given the freedom to operate, magic happens. www.spykegames.com
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Contacts
Nicole DeMeo
Outfront Solutions
nicole@outfront.solutions
415.533.2599
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