Following Nexon’s US$469 million acquisition of gloops earlier this month, Japan’s social gaming industry saw another spectacular exit today.
GREE announced it plans to acquire Tokyo-based social game maker Pokelabo on October 30 – for a handsome US$173 million (13.8 billion yen), in an all-cash deal.
Founded in 2007, Pokelabo announced a capital partnership with Sega (which is holding 19.10%, making it the third-largest shareholder) in October last year.
In recent months, Pokelabo has managed to create a number of smartphone games that have been doing very well in the Japanese App Store and Google Play (example). This summer, the company also launched a card battle game called Mystic Monsters in English.
Pokelabo generated US$7 million in revenue and US$2 million in profit in the fiscal year ending September 2011. The company currently employs 91 people.
And here is Pokelabo’s revenue for 2012 (unit: 100 million yen):
More data can be found on GREE’s IR page (the two PDFs marked “2012/10/24”, Japanese only).
GREE’s last acquisition in this price range took place in the US when the company took over Funzio for US$210 million in May this year.
