Netherlands: VC joins founders in internet games company

Investment

Venture capital firm Van den Ende & Deitmers of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has taken a substantial minority interest in Internet games company Spill Group, alongside the founders Peter Driessen and Bennie Eeftink.

Spill Group is a leader in the Internet advertising boom, operating 24 game portals in 17 countries worldwide. It generates around 40 million visitors per month who play more than 1.5 billion times.

With Van den Ende & Deitmers as a new shareholder, Spill Group expects to develop and acquire other game companies, portals and game community concepts to accelerate its international growth. As a first step the company recently bought the Hispanic game traffic domain Juegos.com.

Spill’s games are non-gambling, free online games that can be downloaded to own for a payment. Genres include puzzle, sport, racing, shooting, action and strategy games, which can be played alone or with several players.

Spill’s content appeals to a wide range of age groups, including children, young adults and adults (mainly women).

Driessen, founder and CEO of Spill Group, said, “The partnership with Van den Ende & Deitmers enables us to accelerate our growth plan and will bring us closer to our ambition to become the global market leader in online casual games.

Hubert Deitmers, managing partner of Van den Ende & Deitmers, said “Spill Group is a Dutch, but also very much a global success story. The two founders realise that different countries, languages and cultures require different game inventories and marketing strategies via highly localised portals. [The company] is unique in its massive but segmented exploitation of casual games and portals worldwide. There is an enormous future growth potential within the fast growing gaming advertising market.”