Voodoo, the French rhino on fire in the ‘hypercasual’ mobile video game

It’s not (yet) the most popular tricolor “unicorn”, but mobile video games are well used by tens of millions of gamers and count billions of downloads around the world. On Friday, Voodoo took a new step with investment holding company GBL (Groupe Bruxelles Lambert) accessing its capital.

Launched in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter, Voodoo has established itself internationally in mobile video games by becoming the global reference in a very promising niche known as “hypercasual games” – i.e. titles that are easy to learn And its parts do not exceed a few minutes. It is therefore not to be confused with “casual” games – which notably include the hit songs “Candy Crush” or “Angry Birds” – which is another segment of the mobile video game segment that is more economically mature and which Voodoo says has ambitions Today.

Prior to that, the French publisher had successfully launched its first hit, in 2016, in “hypercasual gaming” with its game “Paper.io”. “Snake vs Block”, “Helix Jump”, “Keep it alive” …: the successes followed each other and promoted the rapid growth of the startup, which is compensated by the display of advertisements within its titles. Between 2016 and 2019, Group annual income Thus it went from 1.13 million euros to 360 million euros.

Goldman Sachs and Tencent are already in the capital

Success in no way escaped the giants, and not only in the field of “tech” and / or video games. In 2018, Voodoo raised nearly $200 million in funds from US Goldman Sachs Bank. A year ago, global “gaming” giant Tencent also acquired a minority stake in Voodoo’s capital, at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

However, in the past year, the field of “super-easy games” has lost speed due to the health crisis. the reason ? People play this kind of game a lot while traveling by public transportation especially. In the US, the number of unofficial game downloads fell by 4% in 2020, over one year, Sloan Sensor Tower According to whom Voodoo is the leader of this standing on American soil.

Despite this context, the Frenchman does not appear to have lost the leg that made his success. On Friday, its title “Run Rich 3D” appeared as the fourth most-downloaded free mobile game in the US on iPhone and iPad. According to data from App Annie. In all, Voodoo places nine of its games in the top 100 downloaded mobile titles for iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system.

A year ago, American Zynga acquired Rollic, an influential player in “hypercasual games”, for a check for $168 million. This operation has estimated the voodoo competitor at nearly 210 million. A level far removed from the solid blue, white, and red block that falls into the “heavyweight” category in the ultra-relaxing gaming ring.