Fieldfisher France is delighted to have again advised Kwalee on its €1.5m investment in mobile games studio 8sec.
Kwalee, founded in May 2011 by David Darling, founder and former CEO of Codemasters, considered as one of the "founding fathers" of the UK games industry, has the most prolific hypercasual game development studio in the world, has a mobile games portfolio of over 70 games with over one billion downloads across mobile platforms. In recent years, the company has diversified its offering to include games for PC and consoles, and its team now numbers more than 400 people worldwide.
8sec is a pioneer in the field of hybrid casual games. Its ambition is to offer everyone a rich and entertaining gaming experience.
Kwalee's investment in 8sec marks an important milestone for the two companies, which are combining their expertise and strength to create unrivalled games that will push the Hybrid Casual mobile market into the next generation.
Through this transaction, Kwalee will also be responsible for publishing future projects and 8sec's existing games catalogue.
Fieldfisher was involved in all stages of the deal, assisting Kwalee through to closing. With this new transaction, Fieldfisher's cross-border and multidisciplinary team, led by Christopher Mesnooh and Maxence Robillard for the corporate aspects, also Hélène Lefebvre and Adrien Dubois for the financing structure, has demonstrated its first-class expertise, particularly in cross-border deals between foreign investors and French target companies in the field of video games. It has also confirmed its mastery of the technological and innovative issues in this attractive sector. Nathalie Hadjadj-Cazier, partner, and Alexandre Mochon, associate, dealt with the cross-border intellectual property issues for this Anglo-French transaction. Furthermore, Edward Westhead handled the English law corporate and contractual aspects of this operation.
Fieldfisher France previously advised Kwalee on its first French acquisition: Tictales, a French company specialized in the creation of narrative games.
Christopher Mesnooh, partner in the Corporate M&A department, commented: "We are delighted to once again be advising Kwalee, one of the world leaders in mobile games. This transaction has enabled us to combine all our expertise to support Kwalee at every stage of their project and to advise them on all the technical specifics, particularly in terms of intellectual property, the innovations linked to this sector as well as the economic challenges."