Animoca Brands acquires San Fran gaming company behind Power Rangers

Animoca Brands Corporation, the blockchain and artificial intelligence-focused mobile games developer and publisher, has announced it will acquire nWay for A$11.4 million, of which A$2.9 million is in cash and the remainder is in shares, which are priced at $0.18 per share.

nWay is a San Francisco-based creator of high-quality AAA games for console, PC and mobile. According to a statement, the acquisition allows Animoca Brands to leverage nWay's portfolio of games, team, technology suite and platform to enter the rapidly growing competitive gaming space.

nWay has a track record in developing high-quality, fast action multiplayer games. It has developed and published three games: POWER RANGERS: Battle for the Grid, the tag-team fighting game with crossplay functionality on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC; POWER RANGERS: Legacy Wars, the mobile fighting game on iOS and Android; and ChronoBlade, nWay's original mobile action role-playing game.

POWER RANGERS: Legacy Wars is nWay's award-winning mobile game, and now has more than 50 million downloads. The success of the company's games has led to nWay generating revenue of A$10.2 million in the first eight months of 2019, according to Animoca Brand, and now has a global license granted by Lionsgate and Hasbro to make use of the Power Rangers brand.

The nWayPlay platform, which is in development, will provide developers with complete backend and fully managed live-ops services to develop and operate competitive multiplayer cross-platform games. According to Animoca Brand this is currently available to alpha partners.

Developers and executives at the company have experience at leading companies including Google, Tencent, Sony, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, LucasArts, Blizzard, Kabam, Nexon, and NCSoft. Individuals from nWay will join Animoca Brand's profile management team.

Animoca Brands cofounder and chairman Yat Siu says, "The acquisition of nWay is a historic day for Animoca Brands. Not only are we acquiring a company with experienced management, strong revenues, and successful branded games, but we are also immensely excited about the nWayPlay platform, which - among other advantages - will allow a new generation of developers to create multiplayer games without the many years of experience normally required for such tasks.

nWay cofounder and CEO Taehoon Kim says, "Animoca Brands is the perfect strategic partner for nWay, as the Company brings a deep history of innovation, talent and IPs which can help further the main goal of nWay to create amazing games that are enjoyed by fans around the world.

"We look forward to this new era in the history of nWay and continuing to support our titles and platforms, including POWER RANGERS: LegacyWars, Battle for the Grid and our industry leading nWayPlay platform.