Rovio, the mastermind gaming company behind the Angry Birds franchise which is played by millions of mobile and online gamers is worth billions of dollars, at least that’s one one company executive recently told Finnish magazine Kauppalehti Optio.
Speaking to the magazine Rovio Chief Marketing Officer Peter Vesterbacka said the company valuation of $700 million to $1 billion made by Forbes in July 2011 is way too low.
Using the fact that Zynga, makers of FarmVille, Mafia Wars and other popular Facebook games was recently estimated to be worth $20 billion to $25 billion, Vesterbacka says his company should easily be worth at least several billion dollars.
Clarifying his statement, Vesterback said the company isn’t for sale:
“We are not selling though — unless somebody offers enough.”
In all fairness to the markets, just because investors value something in the billions, doesn’t mean it’s worth that much, many tech IPOs are expected to bring in valuations that will take them 20 years to reach at current levels of revenue, in some cases even longer, while some highly valuated company’s have yet to turn a profit or show strong business plans to do so.
In the meantime, Rovio has plenty of time to increase revenue and introduce new viral games into the mix, speaking to Reuters in early 2011 their CEO said the company wouldn’t try to list on the stock exchange for at least “two to three years.”
Regardless of their attempts to value their company Rovio is on a roll and has already raised $42 million from venture capital firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures.
One thing is for certain, if Angry Birds keeps downloading the way it has in recent months, the company should have no problem raising a ton of IPO cash or selling off their gaming business for an obscene amount of money.
