Bertelsmann, Time Warner and Comcast-backed online games company Trion Worlds is reportedly considering an initial public offering (IPO).
Trion’s chief executive Lars Buttler told news provider Reuters his company was planning a flotation having raised more than $100m from investors, including corporate venturing units Time Warner Investments, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and Peacock Equity, which represented NBC Universal and is now part of Comcast Ventures.
Venture capital firms Rustic Canyon Partners, Doll Capital Management and Trinity Ventures joined the corporates in funding both Trion’s B and C rounds. Trion secured $30m from its 2007 series B round, and $70m from its series C round in September 2008. Doll Capital and Trinity previously led Trion’s 2006 series A round, which raised $7m.
Buttler said: "As we build scale and become more profitable, [an IPO] is clearly on our horizon at some point…we’ve had a lot of bankers coming to us recently. We keep all of our options open at this point. We definitely have enough substance and enough skill to be a public company at the right time."
The interview comes as Reuters reports that online games company Zynga has set a mid-November date for its own IPO, which is expected to raise near to $2bn.
Trion however, operates a very different business model to Zynga, developing massively mulitplayer online (MMO) games which are more expensive to develop than Zynga’s smaller scale social network-linked games, but which sell at a far higher price.
Rift, an MMO game developed by Trion Worlds with a reported budget of more than $50m, has sold more than one million copies since its release in March and includes additional revenue streams from monthly subscription fees and add-on content patches. Trion’s next big title is End of Nations, an MMO real-time strategy game set for release next year.