SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Glu Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:GLUU), a leading global developer and publisher of free-to-play games for smartphone and tablet devices, announced today that it has acquired a controlling interest in Crowdstar, a global leader in mobile and social gaming, developing entertainment for women all around the world, in an all-cash transaction valuing Crowdstar at approximately $45.5 million. The combination of Crowdstar and Glu positions Glu to become the leader in the growing fashion game category as Glu continues to diversify its content portfolio.
“We are excited to welcome Crowdstar’s talented team into the Glu family,” said Nick Earl, newly named CEO of Glu Mobile. “Crowdstar is an innovative company that we have long respected, with a proven track-record of building highly social and interactive mobile community platforms. By joining forces through this strategic and complementary transaction, we plan to leverage Crowdstar’s valuable IP and veteran team, which is based right here in the Bay Area, to continue creating exciting cross-platform content that captures and resonates with even more users.”
As a leading developer in the fashion games space, Crowdstar’s portfolio currently features Covet: Fashion, a fashion entertainment app that allows users to style head-to-toe looks with actual brands. Having achieved over 30 million downloads worldwide, Covet: Fashion has consistently held a position in the top 125 on the U.S. Top Grossing charts for all iPhone apps over the past two years. On November 2, 2016 Covet: Fashion held the #80 Top Grossing position for all iPhone apps on Apple’s App Store in the U.S. Crowdstar currently has approximately 90 employees and is headquartered in Burlingame, California.
Crowdstar’s forthcoming platform product, Design Home, utilizes the advanced Covet engine and features platform capabilities targeted toward the interior and home design app markets including photo-realistic graphics. Design Home is currently in beta testing in Canada and reached #54 Canada App Store Top Grossing chart position for all iPhone apps on November 2, 2016. We expect Design Home to be launched in early 2017.
“I am proud of our team for consummating such an exciting transaction that we believe offers significant growth opportunities for Glu in the fashion and home categories,” said Niccolo de Masi, Glu’s Executive Chairman. “Specifically, the Crowdstar acquisition brings to Glu a leadership position in the fashion category and a potential long-term annuity in Covet: Fashion. In addition, Design Home is exhibiting promising potential in early beta results as a platform, and we are optimistic that it can be a significant growth driver for the company in 2017.”
Glu also believes it has the potential to realize significant user acquisition, advertising revenue and celebrity partnership synergies by integrating Crowdstar.
For a more detailed discussion of the terms of Glu’s acquisition of a controlling interest in Crowdstar, see the Current Report on Form 8-K that Glu file with the SEC today.
About Glu Mobile
Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU) is a leading global developer and publisher of free-to-play games for smartphone and tablet devices. Glu is focused on creating compelling original IP games such as CONTRACT KILLER, COOKING DASH, DEER HUNTER, DINER DASH, DINO HUNTER: DEADLY SHORES, ETERNITY WARRIORS, FRONTLINE COMMANDO, RACING RIVALS, TAP SPORTS BASEBALL, and TAP SPORTS FOOTBALL, and branded IP games including GORDON RAMSAY DASH, KENDALL & KYLIE, KIM KARDASHIAN: HOLLYWOOD, BRITNEY SPEARS: AMERICAN DREAM, and SNIPER X WITH JASON STATHAM on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Facebook, Mac App Store, and Windows Phone. Glu’s unique technology platform enables its titles to be accessible to a broad audience of consumers globally. Founded in 2001, Glu is headquartered in San Francisco with U.S. offices outside Seattle and in San Mateo, Portland and Long Beach, and international locations in Canada, China, India, and Russia. Consumers can find high-quality entertainment wherever they see the ‘g’ character logo or at www.glu.com. For live updates, please follow Glu via Twitter at www.twitter.com/glumobile or become a Glu fan at www.facebook.com/glumobile.
CONTRACT KILLER, COOKING DASH, DEER HUNTER, DINER DASH, DINO HUNTER: DEADLY SHORES, ETERNITY WARRIORS, FRONTLINE COMMANDO, RACING RIVALS, TAP SPORTS, SNIPER X, GLU, GLU MOBILE and the 'g' character logo are trademarks of Glu Mobile Inc. or its subsidiaries.
About Crowdstar
Crowdstar creates interactive entertainment for women, blending elegant, polished aesthetics with aspirational gameplay. The company’s flagship fashion styling game, Covet Fashion, entertains millions of women around the world daily. Covet Fashion brings a whole new genre of fashion entertainment as the only app that lets users style head-to-toe looks with actual brands – including BCBGMAXAZRIA, Rebecca Minkoff, Rachel Zoe and more.
Founded in 2008, Crowdstar has deep roots in designing inventive games for women. The company boasts global partnerships with Tencent, NHN and Facebook. Crowdstar’s games can be found across multiple platforms including Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Amazon, and Microsoft. Learn more at www.crowdstar.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding that the combination of Crowdstar and Glu positions Glu to become the leader in the growing fashion game category as Glu continues to diversify its content portfolio; we plan to leverage Crowdstar’s valuable IP and veteran team, which is based right here in the Bay Area, to continue creating exciting cross-platform content that captures and resonates with even more users; our belief that the Crowdstar acquisition offers significant growth opportunities for Glu in the fashion and home categories and a potential long-term annuity in Covet: Fashion; we are optimistic that Design Home can be a significant growth driver for the company in 2017; and Glu also believes it has the potential to realize significant user acquisition, advertising revenue and celebrity partnership synergies by integrating Crowdstar. These forward-looking statements are subject to material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Investors should consider important risk factors, which include the risk that Glu will be unable to successfully integrate Crowdstar and its employees and achieve expected synergies, the risk that Glu will have difficulty retaining key Crowdstar employees; the risk that Glu does not realize the anticipated strategic benefits from our celebrity partnerships; the risk that the number of social followers of our celebrity partners does not correlate to strong performance for our celebrity titles; the risk that consumer demand for smartphones, tablets and next-generation platforms does not grow as significantly as we anticipate or that we will be unable to capitalize on any such growth; the risk that we do not realize a sufficient return on our investment with respect to our efforts to develop free-to-play games for smartphones, tablets and next-generation platforms, the risk that we will not be able to maintain our good relationships with Apple and Google; the risk that our development expenses for games for smartphones, tablets and next-generation platforms are greater than we anticipate; the risk that our recently and newly launched games are less popular than anticipated or decline in popularity and monetization rate more quickly than we anticipate; the risk that our newly released games will be of a quality less than desired by reviewers and consumers; the risk that the mobile games market, particularly with respect to free-to-play gaming, is smaller than anticipated; the risk that we may lose a key intellectual property license; the risk that we are unable to recruit and retain qualified personnel for developing and maintaining the games in our product pipeline resulting in reduced monetization of a game, product launch delays or games being eliminated from our pipeline altogether; and other risks detailed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 9, 2016 and our other SEC filings. You can locate these reports through our website at http://www.glu.com/investors. We are under no obligation, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to update or alter our forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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