The round was led by Balderton – which also counts Turkish gaming unicorn Dream Games in its portfolio – with participation from Felix Capital and 500 Startups.

Founded earlier this year by four former high-school friends and now experienced mobile game developers, Agave Games is Turkey’s newest casual puzzle game studio to watch.Over the next 18 months, Agave is looking to triple its headcount as it develops its first market-leading casual puzzle game for IOS and Android. Agave is looking to hire top tier game developers and artists in Turkey to build an agile team where each employee has responsibility and autonomy over their own work. 

Founded earlier this year in Istanbul by former high school friends and now experienced game developers – Alper Oner, Burak Kar, Baran Terzioglu and Oguzhan Merdivenli – Agave’s 12-strong team boasts a number of high-profile Turkish game developers who have worked in the casual puzzle genre for some time.

Kar was product manager at fellow Istanbul developer Good Job Games having previously been Head of Growth, while Merdivenli was studio lead at the same studio, where they helped create some of the fastest growing casual puzzle games, reaching over 2.5 billion installs worldwide through various titles.Terzioglu meanwhile was Head of Growth at Fugo Games and played a key role in the development of a number of their biggest-selling casual mobile games including the most downloaded word game of all time, Words of Wonders. CEO Oner has taken a slightly different route. Following an Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Degree at UC Berkeley, Oner became an associate at PWC Strategy& before moving on to a Data Strategy Consultant role at Beghou Consulting.