Board games maker CMON raises US$9m warchest for expansion, acquisition
Company’s shares to debut on GEM board Friday
A board games maker that has raised US$26 million over the past five years to fund production of its games through crowd funding campaigns on Kickstarter has placed shares on the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market to fund its expansion into China and to acquire other game companies.
Tabletop game company CMON, which was founded in 2009 and has since produced 42 games, raised US$9 million via the GEM board listing in a bid to take a larger chunk of the growing board games market.
“There’s a lot of market consolidation at the moment, so you have boys that are slightly bigger than us acquiring other titles,” Chern Ann Ng, chief executive officer of CMON said. “I think there are opportunities in the market, that’s why we are pursuing a listing now.”
CMON’s placement was sponsored by China Galaxy International and its shares will begin trading today.
The hobby games market in the United States and Canada hit US$1.2 billion in 2015, up from US$920 million in 2014,according to pop culture researchers ICv2. ICv2 defines the category as role play, board games, dice games and card games sold for a gamer market.
Ng said the company’s current largest markets are the United States and Europe, but the firm sees potential in the growing China market and plans to open a sales office in the country to build its presence.
CMON has translated five of its games into Chinese and will translate more of the games for this audience, Ng, who is the former chief technology officer for PC gaming hardware gaming company Razer, said.
