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A inauguration out of Turkey that has built a hit casual nomadic secret plan where you have to bump computerized tomography inWhere ’s Wally - style drawings of increase complexness has now found something else : $ 18 million in funding . Agave Games , the creator of Find the Cat , will be using the Series A to build out its squad and to form on future titles , start with at least two more in the next year .
The support get at a time when casual fluid games — Holy Writ puzzler , physical puzzles , number teaser , farm - edifice , and the respite — continue to rake in huge audience and revenues . find out the Cat crossed 10 million downloads in its first tail of spirit ( it was only unblock in August ) . “ It ’s the next Tripledot , ” said one investor , refer to the shoot everyday mobile game studio apartment that has itself raisedtons of money at a self-aggrandising evaluation .
Felix Capital and Balderton Capital are co - leading this round , with e2vc participating . All three house were already investor : Balderton had also led Agave ’s seed turn , which happened to have Akin Babayigit , Centennial State - founder of Tripledot Studios , as an investor .
Agave has now raised $ 25.5 million , and its post - money valuation is in the region of around $ 100 million .
Turkey is fast becoming home to a lot of the biggest secret plan startups in a drift started by Peak Games , which Zynga acquired for $ 1.8 billion in 2020 . Peak ’s alums then went on to form Dream Games , which lastraised $ 255 million ; Tripledot ; and Spyke , which raised $ 50 million to begin with this year ( it hadlaunched with $ 55 million in fundingbefore releasing even a single deed ) .
Unlike the others , Agave is only a Peak outgrowth in the collateral signified : CEO Alper Oner had moved to the U.S. to analyse computer engineering at UC Berkeley , and he stayed in the Bay Area working and trying to figure out what he want to concentrate on .
“ I lie with I want to be in the tech business enterprise , ” he said . “ But at the fourth dimension , the Turkish ecosystem just was n’t very big . ” Back then , Peak was growing tight , but beyond that , there was e - commerce and not a whole hatful more , he suppose .
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Then COVID-19 score , and Oner decide to fall home , where he come up together with his gamey school Quaker Ali Baran Terzioglu , Burak Kar , and Oguzhan Merdivenli , and they startle speak about what they could build together .
They dispatch on casual games partly because of their own pastime as gamers and partly because they could see how it could bring together what they sympathize and know about tech .
Agave ’s traction is a score of just how much tighter the formula for making casual games has become . The inauguration had published only one other game before Find the Cat , a mystifier game called Wonder Link . It ’s a flop equate to their second effort , with downloads in the hundreds of thousands since its release in July 2023 . equate that to the stories you hear of Rovio ’s early day . The Finnish company made51 games — all bust — before finally hitting the bonanza with Angry Birds .
Find the Cat is very much a ware of all that has come before , as well as what is around the box . Similar to other casual plot , it leans both into in - app purchases and in - app advertising ( it uses AppLovin , likemany others ) to make money . On Android alone , it has now netted $ 10 million in revenues , perSensorTowerestimates .
Oner said the society is using AI a lot in the creative operation : In the past times , the ship’s company would have had five or six creative person knead on a single screen ( one of the pictures in which 20 or 30 guy are hidden ) . In upcoming games , the company is using AI to make the initial word-painting , and humans are then coming in to “ polish it . ”
The companionship is not using AI for cypher , he said , because nothing has proven to be as effective as humans on this front . But you’re able to imagine how Agave might make more AI - fire personalization into the mix over time .
“ Polish ” seems to be the word of the moment . Rob Moffat , the better half who result the investment funds for Balderton , said he believes Agave has the potential to be a $ 100 million revenue company , partially because of how sticky gameplay is so far in Find the Caterpillar and partly because of other encouraging signals .
“ They ’re building this really strong team working on a bunch of interesting concepts , finding these interesting machinist for game and clear them into a really urbane , fun experience . We are backing the capability they ’ve built to be able to do that , ” he said .
