Turkey, a country not synonymous with game development, has been making headlines as the latest hub for mobile gaming startups, specifically for those focused on building casual puzzle games. On March 1, Istanbul-based Dream Games has secured $50 million in series A round funding after releasing its first-ever mobile title, Royal Match.
Index Ventures, a VC firm well-known for investing in some major gaming companies in the industry, such as Supercell, King, and Roblox, led the Series A funding round.
The funding round also saw contributions from Balderton Capital and Markers Fund. The latter two already made investments in Dream Games previously, contributing around $7.5 million in a seed round in 2019.
Describing Pixar as an inspiration for his company, CEO Soner Aydemir said, “We’re building this as an entertainment company. What they did for animated movies, we want to do for mobile gaming. We are focusing on casual puzzle games first because everyone plays these, but we will also move forward with other genres. We want to be a huge interactive entertainment company that builds high-quality games.”
The studio said the investment would be used to build up its audience for its puzzle games and develop more games with innovative ideas.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first investment by Index Ventures in a gaming startup in Turkey. In December 2020, Index led a $6 million round for Peak Games, also a casual puzzle gaming startup based in Istanbul. Reports tell the investors have great confidence in Dream Games, given as it was founded by ex-Peak Games employees.
Peak Games was behind hits titles like Toy Blast and Toon Blast. Zynga acquired the studio for $1.8 billion in June 2020.
Dream Games currently has 30 people on its team, but the studio hopes to grow its workforce to 75 employees before the end of the year.
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