Polish publisher of video games Movie Games together with investment and capital markets advisory firm INC launch a joint venture on the Romanian market – Mill Games. The newly established company will act as an accelerator for Romanian independent game development studios, providing them with know-how, international connections as well as capital necessary for launching mobile and desktop games ready for global markets. The company puts at the disposal of Romanian entrepreneurs equity financing up to 1 million dollars per game.
Mill Games will actively engage with Romanian game developers, acting as an accelerator and angel investor in one. To its partner studios, Mill Games will provide the publishing services such as quality assurance, public relations, marketing as well as community management for the newly created games. The company will also offer studios business development services, including legal support, assistance in identifying new projects as well as accessing new projects and additional funding. The accelerator is open to companies and start-ups at any stage of development, even those that are currently just at the level of an idea. Mill Games also invites to collaborate already existing studios that are looking for new projects and ideas for games.
Mill Games will invest either in individual titles or directly in independent studios. All projects funded or co-funded by Mill Games projects will be published under the Movie Games label. Since its establishment in 2016 in Poland, Movie Games have published titles such as “Drug Dealer Simulator”, number 1 global top-seller on platform Steam, or critically acclaimed games “Lust for Darkness” or “Lust from Beyond’, which gained international recognition and following. Movie Games and its subsidiaries have established a number of prominent collaborations: with Discovery, Inc or star football player Robert Lewandowski.
Through the accelerator, Movie Games will provide Romanian independent developments with its industry know-how, cross-marketing opportunities, and external producer’s support. Mill Games plans to partner and invest in 10 Romanian studios in the first two years. The founders are, however, ready to provide additional financing as well as extend the size of the first cohort should there be interest.
The ambition of Mill Games is to develop Romanian game development studios that can list on the Bucharest or Warsaw Stock Exchange. INC will assist the companies in preparing for this step as it has active presence on both the Polish and Romanian capital market. As of September 2020, there were 49 gaming companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange with a total market capitalization of 11.6 billion euros. There is currently no gaming studio listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the IT&C sector is currently underrepresented on the Romanian capital market.
“We have been active on the Romanian capital market since 2014, and we have always been in awe of the Romanian tech entrepreneurs. We had an extremely successful collaboration with Bittnet, and we are now ready to partner up with local entrepreneurs from the gaming sector. Having played an important role in the development of the Polish gaming representation on the Warsaw Stock Exchange,
we want to help Romanian independent studios in reaching the capital market. Through Mill Games, a joint venture between INC and well-established Polish publisher Movie Games we plan to deploy not only our know-how but most importantly capital” said Paweł Śliwiński, President of the Board at INC.
In 2015, INC has invested in Romanian IT company Bittnet and has subsequently listed it on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Today, Bittnet is a landmark company on the Romanian capital market, having transferred to the Main Market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange in June 2020. INC has also established and listed on AeRO a venture capital fund, Carpathia Capital which is focused on investments in dynamic SMEs from the CEE region.
