{"id":181695,"date":"2021-08-02T12:05:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T19:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=181695"},"modified":"2021-08-02T12:49:38","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T19:49:38","slug":"skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"Skillz Takes $50 Million Stake in Exit Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile games developer Skillz Inc. (NYSE:SKLZ) is making a $50 million investment in Exit Games. It’s a move aimed at bolstering the former’s multiplayer gaming technology platform.<\/p>\n

\"Exit
Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise in a Fox Business interview. His company took a $50 million stake in Exit Games. (Image: Fox Business<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Germany-based Exit Games provides developers with the tools they need to create and host real-time synchronous multiplayer games — a growing segment of the booming esports space. The company has nearly 600,000 developer partners around the world.<\/p>\n

Skillz\u2019s investment in Exit Games will give the Company permanent access to Exit\u2019s technology to power its esports tournaments and platform exclusively,\u201d according to a statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bulk of the games featured on Skillz aren\u2019t traditional casino fare, such as blackjack, craps, or poker. One of the aims of the platform is to match users based on proficiency so that rookies only play other new players and experts square off against other highly skilled competitors.<\/p>\n

Potentially Shrewd Move for Skillz<\/h2>\n

While San Francisco-based Skillz isn’t a casino company<\/a> or a sportsbook operator, some of its competitions allow players to put up their own cash and bet on outcomes. With esports wagering already growing and seen flourishing in the years ahead, the investment in Exit Games could prove prescient.<\/p>\n

\n

With more than 2.7 billion gamers playing monthly and 10 million developers around the world, the industry is now larger than some traditional entertainment forms, including books, movies, and music, and mobile gaming is driving that growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Since going public late last year, Skillz has been under pressure from some investors<\/a> to grow its user base and garner more of those players’ gaming-related spending. The Exit Games investment could help with those objectives.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpanding into these new areas will grow our total universe of players and allow us to capture an even greater share of their leisure time and spend,\u201d said Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise in the statement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Move Could Pay Dividends for Skillz<\/h2>\n

The statement doesn’t say if Skillz paid cash or used equity for the $50 million stake in Exit Games. Shares of mobile games company plunged 35.17 percent last month, bringing its year-to-date loss to nearly 30 percent.<\/p>\n

However, the company is making moves to allay investor concerns and expand its revenue streams. In June, Skillz announced the $150 million acquisition<\/a> of online advertising firm Aarki. At that time, that transaction was widely lauded by analysts and investors. The reaction to the Exit Games investment is more muted with Skillz stock trading higher by about one percent today.<\/p>\n

Wells Fargo analyst Brian Fitzgerald recently reiterated an \u201cequal weight\u201d rating on Skillz stock with a price target of $18.50, implying upside of 31 percent from current levels. He’s bullish on the recent addition of former Airbnb executive Ian Lee as Skillz chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

The hire is a sign of \u201cstable leadership, a dedicated investor relations function, and further disclosures of more key performance indicators (KPIs) could help raise interest among new investors with a long bias,\u201d said the analyst.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mobile games developer Skillz Inc. (NYSE:SKLZ) is making a $50 million investment in Exit Games. It’s a move aimed at bolstering the former’s multiplayer gaming technology platform. Germany-based Exit Games provides developers with the tools they need to create and host real-time synchronous multiplayer games — a growing segment of the booming esports space. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":181696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33810,20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSkillz Bolsters Multiplayer Footprint with Exit Games Investment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Skillz makes $50 million investent in Exit Games in bid to attract more devlopers and users.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Skillz Bolsters Multiplayer Footprint with Exit Games Investment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Skillz makes $50 million investent in Exit Games in bid to attract more devlopers and users.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-02T19:05:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-02T19:49:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/skillz.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@etfgodfather\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/\",\"name\":\"Skillz Bolsters Multiplayer Footprint with Exit Games Investment\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/skillz.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-02T19:05:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-02T19:49:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85\"},\"description\":\"Skillz makes $50 million investent in Exit Games in bid to attract more devlopers and users.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/skillz-bolsters-multiplayer-footprint-with-exit-games-investment\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/skillz.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/skillz.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise in a Fox Business interview. 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