Mail.ru Forms New Division To Invest $100 Million In Game Development

Mail.ru announced today that it has formed a new investment division that will be tasked with investing up to $100 million into the funding of games development. According to the announcement, "the division will be financing accomplished game studios and publishers that need funding for scaling, as well as young game developers."

Mail.ru Group CEO Boris Dobrodeev had the following to say about the announcement.

Games remain one of Mail.Ru Group’s top priorities. Starting games investment division is a logical next move to facilitate business development by significantly increasing the company’s potential in that segment. Our new games investment division will expand Mail.Ru Group’s investment platform allowing us to provide venture financing, as well as to increase our M&A activity.

The new director of the "Games Investment Division," Ilya Karpinsky, also provided a statement.

With this new division, we aim to discover and develop promising games on the global market, and drive international expansion of the local products. Not only will it offer financing to the teams, it will also help them develop their businesses, particularly by providing access to Mail.Ru Group’s internal resources and services. The companies will be able to get all-round support, leverage our software solutions, extensive analytics and unique marketing opportunities on a global scale.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of games and companies Mail.ru ends up investing in. Mail.ru is primarily known for publishing online games and MMORPGs in Russia and, more recently, in NA/EU through its My.com brand. Whether they will attempt to invest only in games that they would publish, stick to investing in primarily Russian companies, or use a different tactic altogether remains to be seen.