Wildlife Secures $120 Million to Accelerate Game Development Engine

Wildlife Studios is benefiting from a surge of players during the pandemic that has made the company attractive to investors, and this prompted the new round of funding.

FREMONT, CA: Wildlife, a San Francisco, CA-based mobile gaming company, raised US$120m in Series B funding.

The round, which brings post-round valuation to nearly US$3 billion and total funding to US$250m to date, was led by Vulcan Capital with participation from existing investor Human Capital, Benchmark Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners as well as strategic individual investors including, Javier Olivan, VP of Growth at Facebook; Ric Elias, Co-Founder and CEO of Red Ventures; Micky Malka, Managing Partner at Ribbit Capital; Divesh Makan, Partner at ICONIQ Capital; and Hugo Barra, VP of VR at Facebook.

“There’s a big acceleration toward digital, and a lot of investors want to get exposure to that,” Victor said. “We had a lot of inbound interest and we decided to raise more money. We liked that Vulcan was long-term oriented.”

The company intends to use the funds to continue to grow its existing titles, further accelerate its new game development engine, build the infrastructure for the future of mobile games and continue its investment in talent as it scales globally.

Founded by brothers Victor and Arthur Lazarte in 2011, Wildlife has built a portfolio of hit mobile games that span across multiple genres. In nine years, it has launched more than 60 games, including hits such as Sniper 3D, Zooba, Tennis Clash, War Machines, Castle Crush, and Colorfy.

“We are going to be the company that makes the lives of the game designers … the easiest,” Victor said. “We’re the company that is going to leverage its talents to create the best mechanics.”