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.