Dream Games raised around $2.5bn in equity and debt in a private equity funding round that valued the enterprise at $5bn, unnamed people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on May 1.

Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners provided the equity investment while Blackstone (New York/BX) provided the debt financing. The details of the figures were not provided. The deal will be closed in the third quarter.

Confirmed without figures

CVC confirmed the deal in a press release without providing any figures. Some of Dream’s investors since the seed stage, namely Michael Cheung of Makers Fund and Rob Moffat of Balderton Capital, thanked the company in Linkedin posts.

Index Ventures, another investor since the Series A round, also thanked the company in a statement.

Goldman Sachs (New York/GS) acted as financial advisor and debt structuring agent while New York-based White & Case acted as legal counsel to Dream. PJT Partners (New York/PJT) acted as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins acted as legal counsel to CVC.

Half equity, half debt, founders retain 70%

Following the round, CVC became the sole equity investor in the company by buying the stakes held by early-stage investors.

CVC controls a minority stake in the company while Dream’s five founders retain a majority, unnamed people told the Financial Times.

In January, unnamed people told Bloomberg that Dream was in talks to obtain $1.25bn in debt and another $1.25bn in equity. The founders would retain a 70% stake in the company following the deal.

Recognised as unicorn in 2021

Istanbul-based mobile games developer Dream Games was launched in 2019 by veterans of the first Turkish tech unicorn Peak Games, namely Soner Aydemir, Ikbal Namli, Hakan Saglam, Eren Sengul and Serdar Yilmaz.

In 2021, Dream became Turkey’s third unicorn by raising $155mn in a Series B funding round at a $1bn valuation.

In 2022, Dream raised $255mn in a Series C funding round at a $2.75bn valuation.

San Francisco-based Index Ventures led the round with the participation of Dream’s existing investors San Francisco-based Makers Fund, California-based Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), New York-based Kora and UK-based early-stage investor Balderton Capital.

BlackRock (New York/BLK) was the only newcomer.

Royal Match

Dream’s Royal Match, launched in 2021, ranked third in the world for the most in-app purchases in 2024, generating $1.4bn in revenues.

As of December, Royal Match and its sequel Royal Kingdom, launched in November 2024, had a total of 54mn active users.

The company posted a turnover of $2.5bn and an adjusted Ebitd of $500mn in 2024.

Top fundraisers in Turkish gaming industry

Charts by Investgame: Top 10 fundraisers and Top 10 M&As in Turkey’s gaming industry.

According to the latest gaming snapshot by Startups.watch, Turkey had 796 active game developers at end-April.

So far, Turkey has seen the emergence of two decacorns, namely Alibaba’s Trendyol and Getir, a rapid groceries delivery app, along with five unicorns, namely Peak Games (acquired by Zynga (Nasdaq/ZNGA)), Dream Games, e-commerce platform Hepsiburada (Nasdaq/HEPS), artificial intelligence (AI)-based martech (marketing platform) Insider Growth Management Platform and Istanbul-based fintech Papara (launched in 2015).