tinyBuild Inc.

Company type	Public
Traded as	LSE: TBLD
ISIN	USU8884H1033
Industry	Video games
Founded	2011; 14 years ago (2011) in the Netherlands
Founders	Alex Nichiporchik Tom Brien
Headquarters	Bellevue, Washington , US
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Alex Nichiporchik (CEO)
Owner	Alex Nichiporchik (57.9%)[1] Atari SA (7.9%) NetEase (3.2%)
Number of employees	150 (2020)
Website	tinybuild.com

tinyBuild Inc. is an Americanpublisher ofindie games based inBellevue, Washington.^[2] The company was established by Alex Nichiporchik and Tom Brien in 2011 to expand Brien's gameNo Time to Explain into a commercial release. Building from the success of the game'sSteam release in 2013, tinyBuild partnered with DoubleDutch Games for the development and release ofSpeedRunners, which landed tinyBuild further publishing deals. Since March 2020, the company has been founding or acquiring new studios to expand. It became apublic company on theAlternative Investment Market in March 2021.

tinyBuild was founded in 2011 by Alex Nichiporchik (Latvian:Aleksandrs Ņičiporčiks) and Tom Brien.^[3][4] Nichiporchik came from Latvia and had been a professionalWarcraft III: Reign of Chaos player in the early 2000s, which made him enough money to drop out of high school and pursue a career invideo game journalism.^[5] While an employee ofSpil Games in the Netherlands in 2010, he became interested inFlash games. He came acrossSuper Meat Boy, which led to him to want to get into the business. Nichiporchik discoveredNo Time to Explain, a Flash game by Tom Brien, which he thought could be as successful asSuper Meat Boy. Nichiporchik and Brien established tinyBuild in 2011 as adeveloper to expandNo Time to Explain into a commercial release. The company headquarters were based in the Netherlands with Nichiporchik until both relocated toSeattle later on.^[3]

tinyBuild launched acrowdfunding campaign for the game viaKickstarter and raisedUS$26,000 from a$7,000 target.^[3] tinyBuild had agreed with the Russian publisherBuka Entertainment that the latter would publish retail versions ofNo Time to Explain in Russia, get the game released on Steam, and grant tinyBuild$24,500 in royalties in advance. However, Buka Entertainment failed to communicate with tinyBuild until stating that it was forced to cancel the project, withholding the royalties.^[6][7] AsNo Time to Explain could not be launched via Steam, tinyBuild released it independently. The game recouped its development cost but did not turn a significant profit. tinyBuild went into hiatus for nearly a year thereafter until Steam introduced theGreenlight process for game approval.No Time to Explain became one of the first games to be greenlit for Steam in 2013 and had a successful release on the platform. Nichiporchik stated this experience burnt out tinyBuild, which was no longer interested in pursuing development but did not want to waste the newfound success. The company invested in, co-developed, and published the gameSpeedRunners, which led to more developers pitching their games to tinyBuild, incrementally turning the company into a publisher.^[3] To expand its publishing operations, it hired the video game journalist Mike Rose in December 2014.^[8]

tinyBuild obtained$3.75 million inseed funding fromMakers Fund in April 2018, followed by$15 million inseries A funding from an undisclosed investor in February 2019.^[9] The company established its first internal studio, HakJak Studios, withGuts and Glory developer Jed "HakJak" Steen inBoise, Idaho, in March 2020.^[10] Nichiporchik believed that indie game publishers like tinyBuild would have to move away from "transactional relationships"—wherein the developer and publisher would work on one game and then move on—and instead build long-term relationships with the developers.^[11] At this time, tinyBuild had 150 employees.^[12] tinyBuild acquired the development team behindHello Neighbor fromDynamic Pixels in July 2020 for an undisclosed sum to establish the studio Eerie Guest Studios inHilversum. The company invested more thanUS$15 million into theHello Neighbor franchise.^[13] tinyBuild investedUS$3 million into Hologryph, the team behind theHello Neighbor multi-player spin-off,Secret Neighbor in November 2020.^[14] In February 2021, tinyBuild acquired three studios it had previously worked with: We're Five Games, Hungry Couch, and Moon Moose.^[15]

tinyBuild announced in February 2021 that it was to pursue aninitial public offering on theAlternative Investment Market of theLondon Stock Exchange with theticker symbol "TBLD". At the time, Nichiporchik owned 61.1% of the company, while the Chinese companyNetEase owned 14.3%.^[4] The company's shares began trading on March 9, 2021, with an initialmarket capitalization of£340 million.^[16]

tinyBuild acquired the studio Animal in August 2021 for$10.2 million; Animal had been working on publishing their upcoming gameRawmen through tinyBuild.^[17]

tinyBuild acquiredVersus Evil and Red Cerberus in November 2021.^[18]

The company acquired the intellectual property rights to the bulk ofBossa Studios' games includingSurgeon Simulator andI Am Bread, forUS$3 million in August 2022.^[19]

• Official website

• 2011 establishments in Washington (state)
• 2021 initial public offerings
• American companies established in 2011
• Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
• Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market
• Video game companies established in 2011
• Video game companies of the United States
• Video game development companies
• Video game publishers

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