Weekly News Digest #29

InvestGame tracked 9 deals worth $162.8m this week. Below are the top 9, plus a game fund announcement.

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

A four-member Canada-based consortium has acquired France-based games retailer Micromania-Zing from US-based games retailer GameStop (NYSE: GME) for an undisclosed sum. The buyers are Stephan Tetrault and Jean-Francois Chenail, both shareholders of EB Games Canada, alongside Sandra and Stephen Callahan. The Callahans own Gipsy Toys, France’s second-largest soft-toy maker and the producer of the Phryges mascots for the Paris 2024 Olympics. GameStop had owned the roughly 300-store, 1,200-employee chain since acquiring it for $700m in 2008, and flagged the French divestment in Feb’25. The new owners plan to reposition Micromania around collectibles and trading cards, citing a nearly 75% rise in that category at EB Games Canada since Tetrault’s group took over in May’25.

France-based eyewear group EssilorLuxottica (XPAR: EL) has announced the acquisition of French mixed reality headset maker Lynx for an undisclosed sum, taking on its IP, assets, and most of its team. Its parent, SL Process, entered judicial liquidation in Mar’26, after Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) terminated Lynx’s agreement to use Android XR, the platform its unreleased R2 headset had been built around. Founded in 2019, Lynx shipped the standalone headset Lynx R1 but never released its planned successor, the R2.

VENTURE FINANCING

Singapore-based AI gaming tech company PixVerse has raised a Series C extension, bringing its total Series C funding to $439m. New backers include Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), Lollapalooza Capital, Ivy Capital, Grand Mount Capital, Eastern Bell Capital, Mirae Asset, BlueFocus, and CloudAlpha, alongside returning investors iGlobe Partners and OCBC’s Lion X Ventures. The raise implies about $139m of fresh capital on top of the $300m initial tranche led by CDH Investments in Mar’26, and values PixVerse at above $2B. PixVerse counts more than 150 million registered users and is repositioning R1, its real-time world model launched in Jan’26, as the PixVerse Game Engine, which turns natural-language rules into generated, playable worlds.

China-based tech company SeaArt has raised over $14m (RMB 100m) in a Series B round jointly led by Visual China Group (SZSE: 000681), Huagai Capital, and Vertex Ventures China, with participation from GF Xinde Investment and three other investors. Proceeds will fund multimodal foundational R&D, global market expansion, and the incubation of AI vertical applications. Operated by Chengdu Haiyi Interactive Entertainment Technology, SeaArt runs an AI platform offering online drawing and model-sharing tools for entertainment-focused creators. The company was founded in 2023 by CEO Ma Fei, previously a developer at Tap4Fun.

US-based real-money peer-to-peer games platform Pure has raised $8m in a Seed round led by Hidden Capital, with MaC Venture Capital, Ludlow Ventures, Goodwater Capital, SignalFire, and Z Fellows also taking part. The San Francisco company runs peer-to-peer poker for real money among friends and verified players, and it operates rake-free, earning from premium features rather than a cut of the pot. The app is live on iOS in New York, California, and Texas, and the round will go toward its engineering and compliance teams and its payments and identity-verification stack.

Saudi Arabia-based mobile casual games developer Floaty Studio has secured $1m from Merak Capital through its Merak Gaming Fund. Founded in 2023 in Riyadh, the studio is developing the pirate strategy game Pirasea and the sci-fi action game Hero Squad.

South Korea-based games publisher Wemade Max, a subsidiary of Wemade (KOSDAQ: 112040), has made a strategic investment of an undisclosed size in Red Brick House. The young South Korea-based PC & Console publisher was founded by former Neowiz (KOSDAQ: 095660) staff and is building roguelike shooters, co-op extraction games, and action-adventure games. For Wemade Max, the deal buys an early line into fresh indie IP. It lands just weeks after Wemade’s founder agreed to sell his controlling stake, in a $596.7m deal with NeoPulse signed in Jun’26 and set to complete in Oct’26.

China-based tech company Coolqq has raised tens of millions of RMB in a Seed round led by Shanghai Pudong AI Seed Fund, with SenseTime (SEHK: 20) and Zero One Venture participating. Coolqq builds CookiePi, a companion hardware system pairing a central hub with interchangeable character units that embed persistent, memory-retaining personas into plush toys and figures, first aimed at otome-game players and anime fans. The company was founded in 2025 by Xu Chiheng, SenseTime’s first employee, and its roughly 25-person team includes hardware veterans from Xiaomi’s ecosystem.

According to SEC, US-based fantasy football developer Griddy has raised $75k out of $800k from undisclosed investors.

FUNDRAISING

Uzbekistan Creative Association has launched the UzCA Game Fund, the country’s first dedicated investment vehicle for game developers, alongside its first publishing and marketing support program for studios. The fund runs a stage-gated Investment Tier, from $1k-$2k for early-stage concepts through $5k-$20k for studios with projects in development to $50k-$100k or more for studios with proven revenue, funded via revenue-sharing and equity. UzCA has also flagged an upcoming Creative Generation Fund to further expand investment in the country’s game industry.

PUBLIC MARKET PERFORMANCE

Share-price changes over the trading week from Friday Jul 10 to Friday Jul 17, for the public games companies InvestGame tracks. Ecosystem and ad-tech names are excluded, so this is games publishers and developers only, with a market cap above $50m. Source: InvestGame market data, local-currency price change.

SHARE PRICE SIGNALS

• Playstudios (+9.5%) extended a rally as shareholders authorized a reverse split in a Jul 10 vote to cure its Nasdaq minimum-bid shortfall.
• Mattel (+7.3%) rose mostly on Jul 16, when Bank of America reiterated Buy at a $22 target and Odeon Capital initiated at Buy. Citi and Roth MKM stayed at Hold that week, both cutting targets to $15.
• Enad Global 7 (+6.0%) climbed around the Jul 15 worldwide launch of Denshattack! from its Fireshine label.
• NCSOFT (-10.3%), Pearl Abyss (-7.8%), and Shift Up (-7.7%) fell together in the Jul 13 Korea-wide selloff that triggered circuit breakers that week, not on company news.
• Perfect World (-7.3%) dropped after a Jul 14 profit warning guided to an H1 net loss, as front-loaded launch and marketing costs outpaced revenue from its new title.
• Roblox (-6.6%) slid on a Jul 15 Citi note flagging Q2 bookings near the low end of guidance ahead of its Jul 30 earnings, plus renewed shareholder-suit activity.

EARNINGS CALENDAR: THE WEEK AHEAD

Earnings scheduled for Jul 20 to 26, 2026. Dates are issuer-scheduled and can move. Source: InvestGame.

This digest is published for information only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.