GDEV Inc. is a

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playing ...

and

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

holding company. It is a

publicly traded company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( ...

listed on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

stock exchange, headquartered in

Limassol Limassol, also known as Lemesos, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the Limassol district. Limassol is the second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population of 195,139 and a district population o ...

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. The holding was evolved in June 2023 from a video game company Nexters, founded in 2014, one of the top five independent mobile game companies in Europe. Subsidiaries of GDEV include Nexters Studio, which operates offices in Cyprus,

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, and

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, as well as Cubic Games, Royal Ark, and Game Gears. The company is best known for its misleading ads for the mobile games ''Throne Rush'' and ''Hero Wars'', which attracted regulatory scrutiny in Germany due to the use of prurient content in ad campaigns on social media platforms such as

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

History

Founding of Nexters

Nexters Studio was established in 2014 by Andrey Fadeev and Boris Gertsovskiy. Before founding Nexters, Gertsovskiy operated his own gaming studio Crazy Bit, while Fadeev led Progrestar, a social games development company renowned for its viral

free-to-play "Free-to-play" ("F2P" or "FtP") video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content for free. The term "free-to-play business model" or simply, "free-to-play model", refers collectively to business models tha ...

game Friend Factory, which attracted over 20 million users. In 2013, Progrestar launched Throne Rush, a strategy game that became one of the top social games on

and VK the following year. In 2014, after knowing each other since 2010, Fadeev and Gertsovskiy decided to merge their companies. That same year, they made the decision to open a Nexters' headquarters in Cyprus. This led to Nexters' first release, ''Island Experiment'', a casual game for social networks.

The First Success

In 2016, Nexters released ''Hero Wars'', a free-to-play browser and action RPG, next year a mobile version for Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

was released. In July 2023, Nexters underwent a rebranding, renaming the Facebook and browser version to ''Hero Wars: Dominion Era'' and the mobile version to ''Hero Wars: Alliance''. Hero Wars is a midcore game with intense gameplay in short-session cycles, available in over 100 countries. Over the past two years, monthly active users have grown 8.5-fold, reaching six million, according to Nexters. In 2014, the advertising campaigns for the games Hero Wars and Island Experiment on social media attracted regulatory scrutiny in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In 2024, Hero Wars generated $1.5 billion in revenue and surpassed 150 million installations. That same year, the studio partnered with Embracer to introduce

Lara Croft Lara Croft is a character and the main protagonist of the video game franchise ''Tomb Raider''. She is presented as a highly intelligent and athletic British adventurer and archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins arou ...

in Hero Wars, bringing in over 500,000 new players through this collaboration. The popularity of Hero Wars significantly boosted interest in Nexters and attracted new investments. In 2018, Igor and

Dmitry Bukhman Dmitry Bukhman (, ; born 27 May 1985) is a Russian-born Israeli entrepreneur. Together with his brother Igor Bukhman, they founded online gaming company Playrix, best known for its mobile-app games such as ''Township'', ''Homescapes'' and '' Fis ...

, the founders of

Playrix Playrix Holding Ltd., also known as Playrix Entertainment and Playrix Games, is a developer of free-to-play mobile games behind titles such as ''Township'', '' Fishdom'', ''Homescapes'', and '' Gardenscapes''. The company was founded in 2004 by br ...

, acquired the investors' shares in Nexters. According to Nexters, in 2018, the company made $48 million in sales. In November 2019, Nexters entered the Top 10 largest European mobile developers. Already in 2019, 95% of Nexters' revenue came from mobile games in international markets, and revenue grew almost 15 times, generated $318 million in bookings and $120 million in

free cash flow to equity In corporate finance, free cash flow to equity (FCFE) is a metric of how much cash can be distributed to the equity shareholders of the company as dividends or stock buybacks—after all expenses, reinvestments, and debt repayments are taken care o ...

(FCFE) in 2020. As of 2020, 35% of the company's net bookings came from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, 23% from Europe, and 19% from Asia. Its flagship product, Hero Wars RPG, was downloaded 36 million times in 2020 on

and Android. The game has remained consistently popular in the mobile and browser gaming market. In 2024, Hero Wars was recognized as one of the Best

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

Games by the AppGallery Editors’ Choice Awards, ranked fourth among the Worldwide Top Free RPGs according to AppMagic, and became the most visited core browser game in September, based on Similarweb data. In 2025, it was included in Pocket Tactics’ list of The Best Free Mobile Games.

IPO on Nasdaq

In February 2021, Nexters announced it would go public on

via a

SPAC SPAC primarily refers to a special-purpose acquisition company, a method of taking a company public by merging it with an already public investment company. SPAC may also refer to: * Henry Crown Sports and Aquatics Center, a sports facility at No ...

deal with Kismet Acquisition One Corp. Kismet invested $50 million, while Nexters raised an additional $50 million from the

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-based

Mubadala Investment Company Mubadala Investment Company PJSC (), or simply Mubadala, is a state-owned global investment firm that acts as one of the sovereign wealth funds of the government of Abu Dhabi. The company was established in 2017 when then-named Mubadala Developme ...

and VPE Capital in July 2021. In August, Nexters completed the merger with Kismet Acquisition One, which valued Nexters at $1.9 billion. Shares started trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols GDEV. The deal brought Nexters approximately $150 million, which the company planned to use for expansion in the global market. In 2021, in addition to the released ''Chibi Island'' at the end of the year the company soft-launched the new casual game ''Island Questaway''. Nexters plans to launch a match-3-style game, ''Riddle Island'', in 2022. In January 2022, Nexters announced plans to acquire 100% of Cubic Games, 48.8% of MX Capital Limited (RJ Games), and 49.5% of Castcrown Limited (Royal Ark). The total value of these deals amounted to nearly $100 million. On February 28, 2022, Nasdaq halted the trading of Nexters' stock due to regulatory concerns as the stock exchange sought more information following economic sanctions imposed on

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

after its invasion of

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. On March 16, 2023, Nasdaq resumed trading Nexters' stock. In June 2022, the company launched a global relocation program, moving the vast majority of critical personnel from Russia, Ukraine, and

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, and

. At the same time, its Russia-based subsidiaries were divested by transferring the gaming business in Russia to local management.

GDEV Holding

On June 22, 2023, Nexters Global Inc. to restructure as GDEV holding company, becoming its largest subsidiary, along with Cubic Games, Game Gears and Royal Ark. More studios are expected to be added in the future. The GDEV gaming holding replaced Nexters as the publicly traded entity on Nasdaq. Overall, in 2023, GDEV's entire portfolio generated $465 million in revenue, 550 million downloads, and over 14 million monthly active players combined. Geographically, 35% of the revenue came from the United States, 25% from Europe, and 23% from Asia. In April 2024, GDEV successfully launched a mobile game title '' Pixel Gun 3D'' on the PC platform. The game quickly ranked among the Top 20 best-selling and Top 50 most-played games on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

. On its first day, it reached a peak concurrent player count of 25,000 on Steam, and it recouped its PC platform development costs on the release day. In the second quarter of 2024, GDEV recorded $108 million in bookings. This growth came from a $47 million investment in user acquisition, leading to an adjusted

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, state-mandat ...

of $16 million.

Studios and games

By the end of 2024, GDEV houses four portfolio gaming studios with over 900 employees and several globally games for different genres and platforms. GDEV's studios: * Nexters, a leading studio, develops mobile,

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

, and social games, including ''Hero Wars Alliance'', ''Hero Wars: Dominion Era'', and ''Island Hoppers'', which reached 250 million downloads as of July 2024. * Cubic Games is a European mobile game publisher, best known for its flagship mobile shooter ''Pixel Gun 3D''. In 2022, the game had over 170 million total downloads and 5.5 million of the monthly active user. Cubic Games is also currently developing its second game, ''Block City Wars'' (no longer developed), which has already reached over 85 million downloads on the

App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...

and

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

combined. * Royal Ark is a young international gaming company specializing in survival games, including ''Zombie Miner'', which has already surpassed 2 million downloads, and ''Dawn of Zombies'' (no longer developed). * Game Gears was acquired by GDEV in January 2022, and the team here is made up of experienced mobile game developers. They are currently working on RnD projects.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://nexters.com/ 2010 establishments in Cyprus Companies based in Limassol Companies listed on the Nasdaq Video game companies established in 2010 Video game development companies