Tencent was earlier reported to have acquired a portion of the shares of French gaming company Voodoo for approximately US$14 billion, in order to expand its gaming market presence.
Voodoo, a gaming company founded in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter, primarily focuses on accessible hyper-casual games. In May 2018, the company secured a $5 million investment from Goldman Sachs, and its staff grew to 2 by the end of that year.
Currently, Voodoo remains privately held, with founder Alexandre Yazdi and key management holding the company's shares. Tencent's investment and partial stake do not change Alexandre Yazdi's current status as the primary control of Voodoo.
The partnership with Tencent is expected to further expand Voodoo's presence in Asia. According to Voodoo's internal statistics, its games have been downloaded over 37 billion times across iOS and Android platforms, with 25% originating in the Asia-Pacific region and 7.5% in China alone. However, Voodoo also revealed that iOS accounts for the majority of downloads, and hopes to expand Android download usage in China through the partnership with Tencent.
As for the partnership with Voodoo, it is actually beneficial to the mini-game content developed by Tencent on the WeChat platform.
