Season 4, Episode 12: The mobile gaming fundraising market (with Annina Salvén)

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Annina Salvén, the COO of BIT ODD, a Helsinki-based gaming studio that was recently profiled by the WSJ. Bit Odd raised $18MM in a seed extension this month, following on from the €5MM seed round it raised in 2022. My fund, Heracles Capital, is an investor in both rounds.

I asked Annina to join me on the podcast to discuss the current state of venture fundraising for mobile gaming. Specifically, we cover:

• Why Anniina returned to mobile gaming, given the challenges;
• How the 2016-era of mobile gaming compares to today;
• The distribution challenges now relative to 2016-2018;
• The opportunities in mobile gaming now from a revenue growth perspective;
• How mobile gaming start-ups should think about exit opportunities;
• The process for BIT ODD in raising its Seed extension;
• What mobile gaming start-ups should look for in an investor;
• The cross-platform gaming opportunity; 
• Whether games publishing is still viable;
• Helsinki's evolution as a mobile games development hub.

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:

• Vibe. Vibe is the leading Streaming TV ad platform for small and medium-sized businesses looking for actionable advertising campaign performance.
• ⁠⁠⁠Clarisights⁠⁠⁠. Marketing analytics that makes it easy to get answers, iterate fast, and show the impact of your work. Go to⁠⁠⁠ clarisights.com/demo⁠⁠⁠ to try it out for free.
• INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.