Cheer Games, a mobile gaming studio focused on puzzle titles, has raised $4.5 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Makers Fund with participation from Play Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors.
Headquartered in Barcelona, the company plans to use the funding to accelerate development of its upcoming games and expand its global talent base as it scales operations.
Cheer Games was founded by former senior leaders from AppLovin’s Lion Studios who previously collaborated on multiple successful mobile titles. The founding team includes CEO Emre Gercel, CPO Berkay Ozturk, CTO Ertan Ünver, and CMO Kutay Koralturk. The group has a track record of launching top-grossing games, including Hexa Sort, which generated more than $50 million in in-app purchase revenue.
Drawing on that experience, the company aims to create long-lasting puzzle game franchises rather than short-lifecycle titles that dominate much of the current mobile gaming market. The studio is focused on building scalable intellectual property and durable games through disciplined product development and live operations.
Cheer Games has already assembled an 11-person team with backgrounds across leading European gaming companies and is actively hiring as it expands its Barcelona headquarters.
Investors said the founding team’s combination of product design, engineering, growth, and live operations experience positions the studio well to compete in the global mobile games market.
KEY QUOTES:
“When I look across the table at Berkay, Kutay, and Ertan, I see the people who built the games our industry measures itself against and who chose to bet on what comes next. Berkay’s design vision built Hexa Sort into a top-grossing sort game in the world which the industry is still catching up. Kutay didn’t just scale games, he scaled the machine that scales games. Ertan built not one but two successful studios from scratch. That collective experience is not something you find twice. We started Cheer because we believed we could build something more durable than the industry’s short-term thinking allows for. To build games that become franchises and studios that become institutions. Barcelona gives us the global stage, our Turkish roots give us the hunger, and this team gives me complete confidence that we’ll deliver.”
Emre Gercel, CEO & Co-founder, Cheer Games
“From the first time we met the team, the chemistry between the founders was absolutely contagious. They all fed off each other’s energy and expertise as they clearly shared the same vision and philosophy for their studio. The Cheer team has shown they can create fresh game concepts and then build the depth that keeps players coming back. We’re confident they can continue this with their new studio and we’re thrilled to be a part of their journey!”
Curtis Urbanowicz, Investor, Makers Fund
“Truly complete founding teams are rare, but the Cheer founders cover every discipline that defines a top-tier game studio, from product and design to engineering, growth and live ops. At Play, we believe that succeeding in today’s market requires an innate understanding of the category you’re building in, and the Cheer team has demonstrated exactly that through Hexa Sort. That recent, battle-tested experience, combined with their ambition to build enduring games, gives them a meaningful edge from day one.”
Anton Backman, General Partner, Play Ventures
