Sheffield company snaps up World Snooker games firm to keep growth on track in lockdown

Lab42, which holds the World Snooker Tour games licence, has £1.4m turnover and was acquired for £600,000 from US-based You42 Inc.

The firm, based in Leamington Spa, will continue under its own name.

Carl Cavers, Sumo Group chief executive, said both Sumo and Lab42 had transitioned to working from home and the video games market was very strong.

He added: “The addition of a 29-strong, established, proven and talented team will help keep our organic growth ambitions on track through the Covid-19 pandemic, which, as previously reported, has created some recruitment challenges.

"Lab42 also brings the exclusive licence to use the World Snooker Tour brand which supplements the group's strengthening own-IP portfolio, along with some exciting new client relationships and opportunities.

"Sumo Group continues to operate well through the unprecedented Covid-19 challenges and the team at Lab42 has also successfully transitioned to working from home. The video games market is very strong and we are seeing some great opportunities to work on new games.”

Lab42 was sole developer on the photo-realistic game Snooker 19 and expects to have another World Snooker game out later this year, he added. Its other products include Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, Football Manager Touch 18, Sonic Mania, Terratech and Fishing Sim World.

Last month, Sumo reported that since lockdown it had seen a 73 per cent increase in earnings visibility due to people buying video games and had £24m cash in the bank.

No staff have been furloughed. It had record revenues of £49m last year - a 26 per cent rise from 2018.

Sumo floated in December 2017. Today it has 11 studios employing more than 650 in three countries.

In November, the world’s largest video games publisher, Tencent Holdings, acquired a 9.96 per cent stake from Perwyn, an investor in Sumo since 2016.

At the time, the Sheffield company, was valued at £248.46m.

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