Employee shareholders of Kabam, a US-based publisher of free-to-play games, are being given the chance to exit their holdings of up to $38.5m of common stock in a secondary offering made by unspecified investors, including several current investors as well as a number of new investors. Kabam’s current investors include search firm Google, entertainment company Warner Brothers, film producer MGM, microprocessor maker Intel, telecoms operator SK Telecom, and investment firms Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures, amongst others.
The transaction values the company at $700m.
Kevin Cho, Kabam co-founder and chief executive officer, said: “Kabam is focused on the long term and we are motivated to build the next great entertainment company. While we’re building for the long term, we wanted to find a way to enable employees to enjoy some financial benefit today from the equity portion of their compensation. The secondary offering is a terrific way to do this. None of the new investment is going to Kabam: It’s all going to employees who wish to sell their shares.”
Since being founded in 2006, Kabam has raised a total of at least $125m in venture funding, including $85m in a series D funding in 2011 from Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Intel Capital, Google Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures, Performance Equity and SK Telecom Ventures. In December 2012, Kabam raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Warner Brothers Entertainment and MGM Studios.