A Turkey-based mobile gaming startup has developed a new project in which users have to find cats in a digital world of Where’s Waldo-esque cartoon illustrations. Agave Games, the mastermind startup responsible for Find the Cat, has secured $18 million in funding.
The company plans to use the Series A funding to expand its team and create future titles. With 2025 approaching, Agave aims to kick things off with at least two more gaming efforts within the following year.
The Value of Funding for Agave Games
Agave has acquired substantial funding when casual mobile games such as farm and world-building alongside word, number, and physical puzzles are gaining relevance. As these categories of games continue to earn massive revenues from their growing audiences, the Turkey-bound startup wastes no time jumping on the trend.
Upon developing Find the Cat, a hidden object puzzle game application, Agave has garnered over ten million downloads in its first quarter post-launch. The mobile video game was initially released on app store platforms in August 2024. One major investor dubbed Agave “the next Tripledot,” referencing the popular mobile game studio that turned into a money-making machine with its titles over the years.
With Agave’s success, three venture capital (VC) firms continued investing in and supporting the gaming startup. Balderton Capital and Felix Capital will co-lead this current seed round for Agave, with supplemental participation from e2vc. Among the prominent investors of these firms is Tripledot co-founder Akin Babayigit.
Agave has now garnered $25.5 million, pushing its post-money valuation closer to $100 million.
Turkey’s Role in Modern Gaming Initiatives
Over the last few years, Turkey has become a haven for some of the most prominent gaming startups worldwide. In a wave initially started by the Peak Games, which Zynga acquired in 2020 for $1.8 million, Turkey’s game startup scene has seemingly taken on a life of its own. Dream Games commenced after Peak Games’s successes, raising $255 million. Then came Spyke, which raised $50 million this year.
Agave’s CEO, Alper Oner, has moved to the United States to pursue computer engineering studies at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. While in the Bay Area, he realized he wanted to work with a big tech company. Unlike other Turkish game startups, Oner’s platform exists as an indirect branch of Peak Games. The developer would go on to experience struggles in making a gaming platform.
Oner noted that The Turkish ecosystem just wasn’t very big. Back then, Peak was growing fast, but beyond that, there was e-commerce and not a whole lot more.”
Soon, the COVID-19 pandemic led Oner back to his birth country, where he and his high school buddies Ali Baran Terzioglu, Burak Kar, and Oguzhan Merdivenli would begin building Agave together. The young developers shared a passion for casual games while also having a connected understanding of technology.
Agave Games and Find the Cat
It didn’t take long for Agave to pick up speed in designing and developing fun and informal mobile games. Before creating Find the Cat, the startup had only one other published puzzle game called Wonder Link. However, Oner found it a flop compared to its feline-forward successor. Since July 2023, Wonder Link has cultivated hundreds of thousands of downloads.
Conversely, Find the Cat mirrors the lessons Oner and his friends learned while building Wonder Link. Like other mobile games, it offers in-app purchases and marketing efforts for monetary gain. Currently, the application has netted $10 million in revenues.
The Future of Gaming with Agave
Oner credits part of Find the Cat’s success to artificial intelligence (AI). He explained that the company significantly leveraged AI during the creative process. Advanced technology allows the application to deliver a polished appearance that users can enjoy.
However, Agave omits AI in the coding department. Oner says that humans still reign supreme when writing code.
As Agave Games looks ahead, the team plans to expand with the newly secured funding and hopes to release two or more novel titles sometime in 2025. With the swift accomplishments of Find the Cat, Alper Oner’s startup may have found a permanent formula for developing casual mobile games with international appeal.
