Supercell acquires 51% of Frogmind for $7.8m

Leading Finnish games firm Supercell has purchased a major stake in local mobile developer Frogmind.

The company behind Clash of Clans and Clash Royale paid €7m – or $7.8m – for a 51 per cent stake in Frogmind, best known for the Badland series of mobile games. Frogmind will continue to operate independently, VentureBeat reports – similarly to how Supercell currently operates after Tencent took an 84 per cent stake earlier this year.

Johannes Vuorinen, co-founder of Frogmind, described this as long-term partnership, while Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen said the deal was a way to give Frogmind the resources it needs to continue developing successful games.

This is the first time Supercell has made an investment in another mobile game companies.

“Our goal at Supercell is to make great games that are played for years and years by millions of people, games that become part of the rich history of games,” Paananen said. 

“We try to get there by forming small teams we call “cells”, and providing these cells the complete independence and responsibility to work on their game – one way to describe these cells would be to think them as small companies inside the greater company. 

“This pretty unique organisational model has worked well for us over the years, but at the same time we know that not everyone is in a position to work for us.”