The Silicon Review ^Asia

One of the world’s largest internet group Tencent recently acquired stakes in French games company Voodoo. The new investment has increased Voodoo’s value to $1.4bn. This has made Voodoo the first unicorn company in the hyper-casual gaming segment. Voodoo’s portfolio consists of games like Crowd City, Paper.io, and Helix Jump — which might look very simple and quick to play, but they are, in turn, difficult to complete. The games from Voodoo have over 1bn players globally, and the majority of them are from China. The French games company is looking forward to moving into the casual games segment following its alliance with Tencent. This will make the company compete with games like Candy Crush Saga from King and Gardenscapes by Playrix.

CEO of Voodoo, Alexandre Yazdi, stated that the most appealing part about working with Tencent is that the company has more experience in complex games with better depth. Voodoo believes that it can add a fresh wave to casual products from its hyper-casual innovations. In the past, Tencent has made investments in several other gaming companies like Supercell, Epic Games, and Riot Games. Co-founder and managing partner of GP Bullhound, Per Roman, stated that Tencent has once again proved that it is a skilled investor by investing in Voodoo.