Today it was announced that gaming startup Planeto was acquired by media giant Bonnier Publications. The startup has since 2012 had a deep collaboration with Bonnier, which led to the the mighty popular Science Illustrated Quiz Battle game. The game has been downloaded by 25% of Denmark’s population, and 4 M in total in the Nordics.
“With Bonnier Publications experience, unique content and resources, we can improve our services and our product development. We look forward to deepening our cooperation as part of the Bonnier family”
Martin Walfisz started Planeto after leaving Massive Entertainment, which he build from 3 guys in a garage to one of the worlds leading game development studio. With Planeto the focus was on smaller games instead of triple A titles. Started in 2009 initially with web-based and later mobile based games were developed by the team. A strong focus has been on quizzes and games that tested users knowledge and expertise.
Teaming up with Bonnier in 2012, which later also invested in the company, turned out to be a good way to reach users.
“The success of Quiz Battle has shown how much our readers appreciate the opportunity to test their knowledge with other readers and players. By integrating Planetos design- and development capability, we can make better use of the content that we create for our 50 different magazines.” says Jens Henneberg from Bonnier
As part of the acquisition, Planeto’s CEO, Morten Grauballe, will step down. Martin Walfisz will take the role as CEO again.
No details regarding the amount of the acquisition or other terms have emerged. Planeto has as far as we knowraised less then €2M in total.
This article is in collaboration with Øresund Startups, originally by Karsten Deppert. Øresund Startups is a news site focusing on startups in Copenhagen and the other cities around the Øresund strait; Malmö, Helsingborg and Lund. It was initiated by Karsten Deppert and covers news about startups and events from the startup scene. You can follow them at @Oresundstartups.
