Rather than raise funds from VCs, Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands IPOs in Australia

Hong Kong game studio Animoca announced its intention to go public last year, and now the startup has completed that move. Now known as Animoca Brands, it’s listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with the ticker symbol AB1.

Animoca Brands is a separate entity from Animoca with a number of games based on popular IP like Garfield, Ultraman, and Doraemon. It also publishes third-party games. According to the company, its games have been downloaded over 160 million times, but no figure for monthly active users is provided.

CEO Robby Yung says that Animoca chose to list rather than raise another round of funding because it wants to continue growing its business and licensing more IP for games. He believes the IPO – which happened via a reverse takeover by Australias’ Black Fire Minerals – can give it the resources to do this.

“We took Animoca Brands public to align the interests of all parties involved – existing investors, potential investors, staff, merger and acquisitions (M&A) targets, and so on. For investment and M&A purposes, Animoca Brands has better currency as a public company, because that allows us to offer equity more easily than as a private company. If we had kept Animoca Brands private, we wouldn’t have the option of obtaining liquidity using our company’s equity. It’s also easier to retain, motivate and reward staff as a company with a publicly traded stock because that lets us offer tangible, real-value employee incentives,” Yung explains.

“We chose the ASX because Australia is a great market for small and medium-sized public companies, and they understand technology. We didn’t list in Hong Kong because unless you’re a so-called red chip, a mainland state-owned enterprise, or a very large company, listing in Hong Kong means you’re likely to be overlooked,” he adds.

Yung says that Animoca Brands opted for a reverse takeover – a manoeuvre also pulled by social gaming platform Migme last year – as there’s little difference to the listing process in Australia. Animoca Brands still had to comply with ASX regulations and issue a prospectus and related materials like other IPOs.

Now that it’s well equipped to go forward in 2015, Animoca Brands will be expanding its shareholder base and raising capital in Australia. “We intend to acquire more licenses for world-renowned consumer brands and make more games based on them, while we continue to publish great third-party developed games,” Yung adds.

Update January 27, 2015: Additional statement from Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung added to explain why Animoca Brands chose to go public over raising more funds.

Update January 26,2015: Title has been updated for accuracy. Animoca Brands’ portfolio has been clarified with a member of staff and its logo has been updated.

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