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tinyBuild Inc.

Company type	Public
Traded as	LSE: TBLD
ISIN	USU8884H1033
Industry	Video games
Founded	2011; 13 years ago (2011) in the Netherlands
Founders	Alex Nichiporchik Tom Brien
Headquarters	Bellevue, Washington, US
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Alex Nichiporchik (CEO)
Owner	Alex Nichiporchik (57.9%) Atari SA (7.9%) NetEase (3.2%)
Number of employees	150 (2020)
Website	tinybuild.com

tinyBuild Inc. is an American publisher of indie games based in Bellevue, Washington. The company was established by Alex Nichiporchik and Tom Brien in 2011 to expand Brien's game No Time to Explain into a commercial release. Building from the success of the game's Steam release in 2013, tinyBuild partnered with DoubleDutch Games for the development and release of SpeedRunners, which landed tinyBuild further publishing deals. Since March 2020, the company has been founding or acquiring new studios to expand. It became a public company on the Alternative Investment Market in March 2021.

History

tinyBuild was founded in 2011 by Alex Nichiporchik (Latvian: Aleksandrs Ņičiporčiks) and Tom Brien. Nichiporchik came from Latvia and had been a professional Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos player in the early 2000s, which made him enough money to drop out of high school and pursue a career in video game journalism. While an employee of Spil Games in the Netherlands in 2010, he became interested in Flash games. He came across Super Meat Boy, which led to him to want to get into the business. Nichiporchik discovered No Time to Explain, a Flash game by Tom Brien, which he thought could be as successful as Super Meat Boy. Nichiporchik and Brien established tinyBuild in 2011 as a developer to expand No Time to Explain into a commercial release. The company headquarters were based in the Netherlands with Nichiporchik until both relocated to Seattle later on.

tinyBuild launched a crowdfunding campaign for the game via Kickstarter and raised US$26,000 from a $7,000 target. tinyBuild had agreed with the Russian publisher Buka Entertainment that the latter would publish retail versions of No Time to Explain in Russia, get the game released on Steam, and grant tinyBuild $24,500 in royalties in advance. However, Buka Entertainment failed to communicate with tinyBuild until stating that it was forced to cancel the project, withholding the royalties. As No Time to Explain could not be launched via Steam, tinyBuild released it independently. The game recouped its development cost but did not turn a significant profit. tinyBuild went into hiatus for nearly a year thereafter until Steam introduced the Greenlight process for game approval. No Time to Explain became one of the first games to be greenlit for Steam in 2013 and had a successful release on the platform. Nichiporchik stated this experience burnt out tinyBuild, which was no longer interested in pursuing development but did not want to waste the newfound success. The company invested in, co-developed, and published the game SpeedRunners, which led to more developers pitching their games to tinyBuild, incrementally turning the company into a publisher. To expand its publishing operations, it hired the video game journalist Mike Rose in December 2014.

tinyBuild obtained $3.75 million in seed funding from Makers Fund in April 2018, followed by $15 million in series A funding from an undisclosed investor in February 2019. The company established its first internal studio, HakJak Studios, with Guts and Glory developer Jed "HakJak" Steen in Boise, Idaho, in March 2020. Nichiporchik believed that indie game publishers like tinyBuild would have to move away from "transactional relationships"—wherein the developer and publisher would work on one game and then move on—and instead build long-term relationships with the developers. At this time, tinyBuild had 150 employees. tinyBuild acquired the development team behind Hello Neighbor from Dynamic Pixels in July 2020 for an undisclosed sum to establish the studio Eerie Guest Studios in Hilversum. The company invested more than US$15 million into the Hello Neighbor franchise. tinyBuild invested US$3 million into Hologryph, the team behind the Hello Neighbor multi-player spin-off, Secret Neighbor in November 2020. In February 2021, tinyBuild acquired three studios it had previously worked with: We're Five Games, Hungry Couch, and Moon Moose.

tinyBuild announced in February 2021 that it was to pursue an initial public offering on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "TBLD". At the time, Nichiporchik owned 61.1% of the company, while the Chinese company NetEase owned 14.3%. The company's shares began trading on March 9, 2021, with an initial market capitalization of £340 million.

tinyBuild acquired the studio Animal in August 2021 for $10.2 million; Animal had been working on publishing their upcoming game Rawmen through tinyBuild.

tinyBuild acquired Versus Evil and Red Cerberus in November 2021.

The company acquired the intellectual property rights to the bulk of Bossa Studios' games including Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, for US$3 million in August 2022.

Subsidiaries

Studios

Former

Games developed

Games published

References

1. "Major Shareholders".
2. "tinyBuild AIM Admission Document" (PDF). tinyBuild. March 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 10, 2021. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
3. ^ Valentine, Rebekah (May 14, 2019). "TinyBuild: Development to publishing, and back again". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on November 7, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
4. ^ Muirhead, Calum (February 23, 2021). "Video game developer tinyBuild plans AIM float". Proactive Investors. Archived from the original on March 13, 2021. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
5. Conditt, Jessica (November 17, 2015). "Meet the high school dropout paving the way for indie eSports". Engadget. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
6. Vincent, Brittany (June 20, 2017). "TinyBuild Games CEO claims they were scammed by a Russian publisher". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on December 2, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
7. Bishop, Samantha (July 18, 2015). "No Time to Explain sucked, tinyBuild's CEO explains why". GameZone. Archived from the original on March 13, 2021. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
8. Sinclair, Brendan (December 1, 2014). "tinyBuild hires Mike Rose". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
9. Valentine, Rebekah (February 15, 2019). "TinyBuild raises $15 million in Series A funding". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
10. Sinclair, Brendan (March 3, 2020). "TinyBuild opening new Boise studio with Guts and Glory developer". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 15, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
11. Handrahan, Matthew (June 4, 2020). "Tinybuild: Indie publishers must move beyond "transactional relationships"". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on March 9, 2021. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
12. Blake, Vikki (March 31, 2020). "'Indie publishing is dead' says Hello Neighbor franchise co-founder". MCV/Develop. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
13. Takahashi, Dean (July 16, 2020). "TinyBuild acquires Hello Neighbor devs and will invest $15 million in franchise". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on July 16, 2020. Retrieved July 16, 2020.
14. Takahashi, Dean (November 26, 2020). "TinyBuild invests $3 million in Secret Neighbor developer Hologryph". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on February 17, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
15. Batchelor, James (February 9, 2021). "TinyBuild acquires three studios". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
16. Handrahan, Matthew (March 9, 2021). "TinyBuild launches £340m IPO". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on March 10, 2021. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
17. McAloon, Alissa (August 19, 2021). "TinyBuild to 'acquihire' Rawmen developer Animal for up to $10.2 million". Gamasutra. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
18. "TinyBuild acquires Versus Evil and Red Cerberus in $31.3m deal". GamesIndustry.biz. November 23, 2021. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
19. "TinyBuild acquires Bossa Studios IPs for $3m". August 26, 2022.
20. Ngan, Liv (December 6, 2023). "Layoffs reported at Hello Neighbor publisher TinyBuild". Eurogamer.
21. Stedman, Alex (December 22, 2023). "Indie Publisher Versus Evil Is Shutting Down, Entire Staff Laid Off". IGN. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
22. "Preliminary Unaudited Results to YE 31 Dec 2023".
23. "Preliminary Unaudited Results to YE 31 Dec 2023".
24. "The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales". Gamepressure. June 16, 2024. Retrieved September 11, 2024.

External links

• Official website

• 2011 establishments in Washington (state)
• 2021 initial public offerings
• American companies established in 2011
• Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
• Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market
• Video game companies established in 2011
• Video game companies of the United States
• Video game development companies
• Video game publishers