Picking up from where it left off in 2021, the Turkish startup ecosystem stepped into the new year with new investments, and again, the gaming industry has hit the headlines.

What’s more, the dynamic industry needed only one month into 2022 to exceed the whole of 2021 and land deals that pave way for a record year.

Investors handed out more than $1.55 billion (TL 21.12 billion) in cash to Turkish startups last year, shattering previous records, according to startup monitor startups.watch data.

The size of the total investments rocketed 948% year-over-year and was up 47% in terms of the number of deals.

The Turkish gaming industry alone clinched $265 million worth of funding through 52 investment tours in 2021, with valuations surging 80% year-over-year.

Just weeks into the new year, three startups alone managed to log $315 million worth of investments, leaving behind the whole of 2021.

Dream Games clinched a $255 million deal, casual gaming startup Spyke Games raised $55 million in a seed round, with Fomo Games lastly pulling down a respectable $5 million in a new funding round.

According to startups.watch data, four gaming startups, namely Hadi, Ace Games, Brew Games and Fomo Games, were among the top 10 ventures receiving the largest seed investments in 2021.

The mobile gaming startup Dream Games captured the total investment amount that the industry gained in the whole of 2021 by winning the series C funding round of $255 million earlier this month.

Every new funding hereafter just adds to what already seems to be the best year ever for the Turkish gaming industry.

Fomo Games had landed a TL 17 million ($1.1 million) investment deal in 2021, before it logged the $5 million seed investment just this week. The funding round is said to be provided by Luxembourg-based venture capital and private equity house Libertus Capital.

Founded in 2019 by Yunus Güvenen, Emre Teksöz and Yusuf Ceylan, the company that focuses on puzzle games has once again reiterated the increasing international interest in the studios developing mobile games.

New investment deals

For the Turkish gaming industry, everything started in early 2020 at the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when Istanbul-based Peak Games became the country’s first unicorn – a term used for a startup that passes the $1 billion mark – after it was sold to the U.S.-based giant Zynga in a deal worth $1.8 billion.

This deal so to speak solved the issue of funding, which long stood as a chronic problem for the industry.

Now, ventures such as Brew Games, Ace Games, Bigger Games, Hadi and Inventuna Games are expected to clinch new investment deals, taking the figure to a much higher level.

Dream Games: A locomotive startup

Dream Games is a candidate for the locomotive startup of this year, given the fact that it almost tripled its valuation to $2.75 billion in a little more than six months.

It has raised $468 million since its founding in 2019, turning into one of the most valuable mobile gaming startups that is also among ventures receiving the largest among of investments.

The Istanbul-based company’s Series C funding round was led by Index Ventures and subscribed by Makers Fund, IVP, Kora, Balderton Capital and funds managed by BlackRock.

Dream Games raised $155 million, valuing the company at $1 billion, in a previous funding round it said in June.

The company plans to more than double its headcount to 200 people and publish a new game this year, following its debut release Royal Match, which the company says is among the top 10 grossing games in the United States and the United Kingdom.