Rovio Entertainment Ltd, the software giant behind the popular Angry Birds games on Android, has now reported its market valuation and initial funds raised following the company’s initial public offering (IPO). This follows news from earlier in the month which suggested the company would follow through on plans to take the company public. As to the company’s plans for the gains from the IPO, the company says that those will be used to grow the company, including through initiatives to boost brand recognition and to consolidate its position in the gaming industry. Having the company listed publicly should also aid in that effort, since the move should provide both the brand and the company’s projects with more visibility.
Regarding the specifics of Rovio’s IPO, the company’s shares were set at a price of €11.50 (or around $13.60) per share – which is at the upper end of the initial range. That resulted in the company raising around €30 million ($35.6 million) as a result of the IPO, while around €458 million ($541.5 million) went to majority owners, which are reported to include Trema International, Accel Partners, and Atomico. Meanwhile, the new market valuation for Rovio Entertainment Ltd had been set at €896 million, which is around $1.06 billion in U.S. dollars, ahead of its IPO on September 29.
Although the company appears to be on the rebound now – having doubled sales in 2017 year-over-year to around €153 million (around $180.9 million) with a core profit increase of around 281.8 percent – the added spendable revenue is something Rovio could almost certainly use. Back in 2015, the company suffered major setbacks, due to a massive decline in sales, which forced the company to downsize its employee numbers by around a third. The latest improvements to Rovio’s standings can be directly attributed to the debut of an Angry Birds movie in 2016 and an expansion for the company in terms of new games, including several released more recently in 2017. There’s still a chance things could shift to another, more negative direction but for the time being Rovio’s position in the industry appears to be stable. Moreover, this latest move to go public appears to be paying off as well, as of this writing.