Huuuge Games, a social casino game maker, officially revealed its intentions to go public via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. According to preliminary expectations shared by the company, Huuuge hopes to raise $150 million with the IPO.
Although the company is still considered the new kid on the block, joining the gambling sector relatively late, Huuuge managed to find its audience and is currently targeting younger people. The firm is particularly focused on the provision of live gambling operations and frequent updates about the sector that make customers come back for more.
Now, the operator has decided to finally take advantage of the big window in Initial Public Offerings in the gambling sector. Only a few days ago, Paytika went public, raising a total of $11.4 billion through its IPO. Reportedly, Activision Blizzard managed to raise $2 billion in senior notes.
Market analyst firm InvestGame estimated Zynga’s $1.8-billion acquisition of private Peak Games and Tencent’s $1.4-billion acquisition of Leyou Technologies as the biggest transactions in the sector. InvestGame further revealed there were 158 acquisitions and IPOs in the sector, with their total value being estimated at $11.6 billion.
Huuuge Operates Through Three Divisions Managing Its Key Games Offerings
Huuuge Games was established in 2015 by Anton Guffin, who currently holds 42% of the voting rights at the operator. The company specializes in the development of free-to-play social casino mobile games, revealed that it had 4.74 million monthly users as of September 30, 2020. The figure represented an increase from the 3.98 million active users at the end of 2019.
At the same time, Huuuge managed to enhance its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) from a $4.3-million loss to $24.8 million. For the nine months until September 30, 2020, the company generated overall revenue of $243.5 million, a significant 30% year-to-year increase from the $187.3-million revenue generated in the same nine months a year earlier. The same period also saw the adjusted EBITDA of the company increase from $9.3 million to $54.2 million.
Currently, there are three main units Huuuge operates through – Brave, Mighty and HuuugeX. They manage the internal and external studios of the operator and its games, while also boosting the operator’s portfolio. The three divisions hold the responsibility for the company’s key games offerings – Brave specializes in casual games through publishing deals, Mighty operates games offering within the social casino subgenre, while HuuugeX is responsible for innovative new generation casual games.
The operator’s portfolio currently includes a variety of games, such as casual games as the ones offered under the Coffee Break Games label; social games such as Stars Slots, Huuuge Bingo Saga, Huuuge Casino, etc.; and some games that are still in the early stages of development.
In the Initial Public Offering, the company and some investors are set to sell shares. The ones selling include RPII HGE, Big Bets OÜ, Seoul Investment Patent Venture Fund, Korea Investment Global Contends Fund, etc. The money derived from the IPO is set to be used by Huuuge for new investments and acquisitions, as well as to fund the company’s already existing operations.
