Swedish online gaming community operator M.O.B.A. Network announced that it has completed its acquisition of massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) genre-focused gaming community MMORPG.com. M.O.B.A. Network paid a $1.25M USD purchase price in cash and consolidated MMORPG.com on Dec. 1.
M.O.B.A. Network currently runs 11 gaming communities, including the League of Legends community Mobafire, which accumulated over 400M visitors throughout the last year. In December 2019, the company floated on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market.
The company primarily generates revenues through advertisements and programmatic and direct deals. Over the last four years, M.O.B.A. Networks posted a 50% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for its revenues. In the company’s latest fiscal year ended Sept. 30, its net sales increased by 37% to kr30.8M SEK ($3.65M) from kr22.5M ($2.67M) in the same period of 2018/2019. In total, M.O.B.A. Networks ended its fiscal year 2019/2020 with kr14.5M ($1.72M) in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), up 25% compared to the previous year.
The acquisition of MMORPG.com, which was founded in 2002, expands M.O.B.A. Network’s coverage with hundreds of game titles in the MMORPG genre, such as World of Warcraft. The community currently has close to 4M registered members and roughly 1M visits per month.
The MMORPG.com platform is monetized through advertisement and affiliate collaboration revenue streams. M.O.B.A. Network expects the site to generate approximately $500K in sales in 2020 and an earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margin of roughly 50%.
M.O.B.A. Network reported a kr31M ($3.67M) cash position in its latest earnings report, which it could allocate towards acquisitions as “growth through acquisitions is part of our strategy for value creation.”
