Mobile Game Developer King Acquires Artificial Intelligence Company Peltarion
June 13 2022 - 08:00AM
Business Wire
King, a leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile
gaming world, announced today the acquisition of artificial
intelligence software company Peltarion.
Peltarion is a Swedish artificial intelligence (AI) software
company and developer of a no-code, machine learning operations
platform that empowers users to design, train and manage deep
learning models in the Cloud at scale and at speed. King’s
acquisition of Peltarion will accelerate the current use of AI and
machine learning technology in King’s game platform, a key area of
ongoing strategic direction for the company. With this investment,
King aims to continue to build top-tier AI and machine learning
capabilities and teams – enabling a new generation of innovative
game design, development and live operations capabilities and
becoming a hub for the world’s top talent in game AI.
“We are proud to announce the acquisition of Peltarion. Machine
learning technology is moving quickly, and by increasing our
investments in this field, we expect to deliver even more creative
content to our 250 million monthly players* (Q1 2022) across the
globe. We believe the talented Peltarion team, together with the
powerful technology they have built, will help us serve our players
even more effectively with more engaging games and content. This is
yet another step towards our mission of making the world playful,”
says Tjodolf Sommestad, President of King.
Founded in 2004 by Luka Crnkovic-Friis and Måns Essén, Peltarion
is based in Stockholm and is one of Sweden’s most established AI
innovators. Crnkovic-Friis and Essén will assume leadership roles
at King, focusing on advancing King’s AI and machine learning
capabilities and building on and contributing to Sweden’s AI
community and rich history of innovation in this area.
“This is a monumental chapter in Peltarion history. We are
excited to be part of a big AI success story in the Nordics,
especially with Stockholm at its base. We are impressed with King
for being one of the most successful Swedish tech companies and
mobile game developers of modern time. The scale and reach of King,
with iconic franchises like Candy Crush Saga, is a great match for
our technology. The opportunities with AI seem to be endless, and
we cannot wait to unlock the potential of working together,” said
Luka Crnkovic-Friis, Peltarion CEO.
“It’s rare to find a team with such a depth of expertise in
machine learning and AI technology combined with a long history of
successfully delivering this capability to many different
organizations in diverse domains and markets. We are privileged to
be in a position to welcome the Peltarion team into the King
family. We have an ambitious vision for the future of mobile games.
Together with Luka, Måns, the team and their powerful AI platform,
we’re accelerating our plan to use AI in how we create and operate
our games to deliver this vision and to delight our players even
more,” said Steve Collins, King Chief Technology Officer.
About King
King is a leading interactive entertainment company for the
mobile world. It had 250 million monthly active users as of first
quarter in 2022 across web, social and mobile platforms, and has
developed more than 200 exclusive games that are enjoyed all around
the world through its king.com, Facebook, and mobile distribution
platforms such as the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Microsoft
Windows App Store and Amazon Appstore. King was acquired by
Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) in 2016. King has game studios
in Stockholm, Malm�, London, Barcelona and Berlin, along with
offices in San Francisco, New York, and Malta.
About Peltarion
Peltarion is a leading Swedish AI innovator with its head office
in Stockholm. The first platform “Synapse” was released in 2004,
and helped companies and organizations like NASA, Tesla, Dell and
Harvard to benefit from AI. The vision for Peltarion is to make AI
accessible and affordable to more people and create a platform
where people can work with AI without needing the skills of a data
scientist is a step towards this vision. Among the Peltarion
customers today, you will find enterprises in sectors ranging from
manufacturing to retail. And the opportunities to do more expand
every day.
Financial terms of this transaction were not disclosed.
*Monthly Active User (“MAU”): We monitor MAUs as a key measure
of the overall size of our user base. MAUs are the number of
individuals who accessed a particular game in a given month. We
calculate average MAUs in a period by adding the total number of
MAUs in each of the months in a given period and dividing that
total by the number of months in the period. An individual who
accesses two of our games would be counted as two users. In
addition, due to technical limitations, an individual who accesses
the same game on two platforms or devices in the relevant period
would be counted as two users.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements:
Information in this press release that involves King's
expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the
Peltarion acquisition are forward-looking statements that are not
facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that
could cause King's actual future results to differ materially from
those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this
release include unanticipated product delays and other factors
identified in the risk factors sections of Activision Blizzard's
most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly
reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this
release are based upon information available to King and Activision
Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither King nor
Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such
forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to
be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These
statements are not guarantees of the future performance of King or
Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and
other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause
actual results to differ materially from current expectations.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220613005280/en/
FOR MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Press@king.com
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