Hit music games Beatstar and Country Star have a new home at startup NextBeat.
Led by former Space Ape exec Simon Hade, the new outfit appears to have spun out on its own as Supercell continues to integrate Space Ape into its organisation. As we reported last year, having owned a majority stake in Space Ape for some time, Supercell bought out the rest of the company and plans to turn it into ‘Supercell London’ by this spring.
Announcing the move on LinkedIn, Hade wrote: “Excited to announce that I’m starting a new project that a bunch of us have been cooking up with Supercell for a while now. Will reveal all soon.”
His new role is now listed as CEO of NextBeat, and Space Ape games Beatstar and Country Star are featured on the firm’s website.
Hade is joined at NextBeat by fellow former Space Ape Derek De Filippo, who is now head of BD and partnerships at the new firm, which he confirmed on LinkedIn. Around 16 other staff including cofounder Olly Barnes, CFO Joe Adams and others including head of operations Imogen Turner have also updated their profiles this morning to say they work at NextBeat.
After Supercell bought out the rest of Space Ape back in November, the Finnish firm told us that “Space Ape will become part of Supercell rather than operate on its own” following the acquisition. So it appears that Space Ape’s existing music titles didn’t quite fit into the Supercell portfolio.
It remains to be seen what happens to other Space Ape titles Chrome Valley Customs, Fastlane and Transformers: Earth Wars as the integration continues.
We have asked NextBeat and Supercell for further detail on this story.
