King.com, the British interactive entertainment company and maker of the popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga submitted a regulatory filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO).
According to the Financial Times, King.com took advantage of the JOBS Act, which allows a company with less than $1 billion revenues per year to file its S-1 form with the SEC confidentially. In due course, the company will disclose its regulatory filing to the public after a quiet period.
Twitter, the well-known micro blogging company took a similar step several weeks ago. Twitter’s management had been very quiet amid speculations of a potential IPO, and suddenly confirmed its filing via tweet without giving further details about it.
The micro blogging company chose to list at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) instead of Nasdaq. According to reports, Twitter does not want to experience any technical glitch, which was endured by Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) during its IPO.
The Telegraph indicated that the estimated valuation for King.com is around $5 billion. However, the report indicated that only “few financial details” are available about the interactive entertainment company. However, it mentioned it generated around £300 earlier this year, and the business expanded rapidly.
King.com stated in its website that it has 92 million daily active users as of June 2013. Its most successful game title is Candy Crush Saga, which features more than 300 peculiar levels wherein players must three identical candies on a checkered board to disappear and look for special candies.
King.com outperformed U.S. based games developer, Zynga in mobile monetization and number of players. Its estimated valuation of $5 billion is higher than Zynga’s $3 billion market capitalization.
The U.S. based games developer struggled in shifting its games from the web particularly from Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) into mobile apps. Zynga lost the confidence of its investors after failing to boost its monetization from mobile, and many of its users lost interest in playing Farmville and Zynga poker. Its stock value declined significantly from $14.69 to $3.78 a share.
One of the sources close to King.com pointed out that unlike Zynga, King.com did not stumble in shifting to mobile, which the new paradigm in the gaming industry. The Financial Times previously reported that the British interactive entertainment company engaged the services of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Credit Suisse Group (NYSE:CS), and JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) to manage its public offering.
King.com was co-founded by Riccardo Zacconi, Sebastian Knutsson, Lars Markgren, Toby Rowland, Thomas Hartwig and Patrik Stymne in 2003. Apax Partners and Index Ventures provide funding for the company to expand its games to other platforms.
