Here every Monday, we’ve got the biggest moves and promotions from across the mobile games business, all in one spot.
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Laton Ventures: This new VC firm was founded by Görkem Türk, former industry manager for gaming and startups at Google’s Istanbul office.
Laton Ventures is backed by a group of “successful industry veterans”, Türk said on LinkedIn, and will focus on early stage investments in games companies.
“This step is fueled by everything I’ve learned at Google,” Türk said. “I’m excited to connect with entrepreneurs, innovators, and fellow venture capitalists who share our passion for the gaming industry.”
Supercell: The Clash of Clans maker has hired Epic Games’ Rob Lowe, who will now be leading marketing on something Supercell has cooking in 2024. Lowe was until recently head of marketing and publishing at Epic, working on LEGO Fortnite.
Prior to that he worked at LEGO for eight years, leading its gaming efforts and later becoming MD of LEGO Ventures, its investment arm. He has also worked in marketing leadership roles at the BBC and Nintendo.
Kwalee: The UK publisher has appointed Sayeed Rahman as publishing manager. He moves from Unity’s Luna Labs division where he was customer success manager. Rahman has also worked at Verizon and Ancoris.
Moon Active: The Coin Master maker has appointed Moran Ram as its new analytics team lead. Ram joins from Wildlife, where she also led the analytics team.
Nordeus: The Take-Two-Zynga-owned maker of Top Eleven has appointed Om Tandon as its new UX design leader. Tandon has worked in art and UX/UI roles at Gameloft, Digit Game Studios and most recently Wildlife, where he was head of UX and market research. Tandon has also worked for a variety of clients through his UX Reviewer Games Consultancy business.
Tactile Games: The Lily’s Garden maker has hired three more folks: former Switchcraft and June’s Journey writer at Wooga Dan Ayres, who is now narrative designer, and Saran Walker, the studio’s story director. Walker joins from Pixelberry Studios, where she was editorial lead on its StoryLoom project. Lisa Felder has also joined as frontend engineer.
FunPlus: The State of Survival maker has hired Mattia Genini as senior game artist at its Barcelona studio. He joins from Voodoo where he was senior game artist, and has also previously worked as UI artist at Codemasters.
Xsolla: The payments firm has hired Veronika Terekhova as product marketing manager. She joins from browser MMO maker Dragon Machines and has previously worked at Nexters. Xsolla has also hired former Epic Games technical trainer Joe Pierpont as program manager for Unreal Engine.
Amber: The development services specialist has hired David Cohen as senior director of business development. He joins having served in various bizdev roles at iLogos Game Studios, Room 8, Bosi Art Studios and as technical art director at Perfect World Entertainment.
Nexters: The Hero Wars maker has promoted to Anton Kvashnevskiy to become its new head of bizdev and admon. He steps up from his previous role as bizdev manager.
Metacore: The Merge Mansion maker has promoted Dish Eldishnawy to the role of product and growth lead. He steps up from his role as product manager not long after he joined the Helsinki studio from Unity in October 2022.
Bandai Namco Mobile: The Barcelona-based mobile studio has appointed Miguel Gómez Selva as principal Unity artist. He joins from LitLab games and has worked in art roles across the games, VR and VFX industries for over a decade.
Pocket Gems: Crystal Martinez has been promoted to the position of story operations coordinator. She was previously a writer and visual storytelling scripter at the Episode maker.
