Tencent Acquires Minority Stake in Dontnod Entertainment

Dontnod Entertainment – developers of games such as Life is Strange, Vampyr, and Twin Mirror – have been taking their first steps on the road to self-publishing, and for that purpose, they’ve announced that they will be raising €40 million. Of those, €30 million have come from Chinese conglomerate Tencent (via GamesIndustry).

As a result, Tencent has acquired a minority stake in Dontnod Entertainment, which earns them a seat on the developer’s board of directors. Dontnod Entertainment CEO Oskar Guilbert says the developer plans on leveraging the injection of funds from Tencent to utilize the growing Chinese and mobile markets.

“We are delighted to welcome Tencent as a Dontnod investor,” says Guilbert. “This is a real expression of trust from a key online game leader, which is behind a number of success stories and has invested in several leading companies in the video game industry.

“Through this partnership, Dontnod is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the various growth drivers in the video game industry, in particular in China and on mobile platforms, in cooperation with an industry leader. The capital increase announced today will enable us to step up and boost the roll-out of our development plan, which aims to capture more value from our original creations by self-publishing more games.”

Dontnod Entertainment released two major games in quick succession at the end of last year with Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror, the latter of which was self-published. The developer opened up a new studio in Montreal, Canada last year, and as of November, had 6 games in production. One of them is in collaboration with Focus Home Interactive. The two previously worked together on 2018’s Vampyr.