How Peak Games Became a Starting Point for Turkey’s Next Gaming Companies
- 01Successful companies create future founders. Peak Games gave employees valuable experience building and scaling internationally successful mobile games.
- 02An experienced team attracts investors. Dream Games secured $7.5 million before launching a game because investors recognised the founders' previous work and ability to execute.
- 03Talent can create an entire startup ecosystem. Former Peak employees went on to establish companies like Dream Games, Spyke Games and TaleMonster Games, spreading experience across Turkey's gaming industry.
In 2019, five employees left Peak Games to build another mobile gaming company in Istanbul.
Their new business, Dream Games, had no released game. But the founders had already worked together on Toy Blast and Toon Blast, two internationally successful puzzle games.
That experience helped them raise $7.5 million before they had a product on the market. They would eventually create Royal Match, one of the world’s biggest mobile puzzle games. Balderton’s investment account
Dream’s founding came a year before Zynga bought Peak for $1.8 billion. The people coming out of Peak were already beginning to build its next generation of companies before the acquisition happened.
Peak gave its employees experience investors could recognise
Peak, founded in Istanbul in 2010, demonstrated that a Turkish studio could build games for a global audience.
When Zynga announced its acquisition in June 2020, Toy Blast and Toon Blast together had more than 12 million average daily mobile users. The company being acquired had roughly 100 employees. Zynga subsequently completed the purchase in July. Acquisition announcement, Zynga’s company history
Working inside that business meant encountering problems that a new studio would otherwise have to learn from scratch: how to design levels, retain players, release new content and attract customers internationally.
For employees who later became founders, that was valuable experience to carry into another company.
Dream Games brought an existing team into a new business
Dream’s founders did more than put the same employer on their résumés. They had already built products together.
Balderton’s original investment memo highlighted that shared experience, their working relationships and their attention to small product details. It also recorded that they had left valuable employee share options behind to start again.
The new company still had to prove it could produce a successful game. But investors could assess the people behind it using work they had already done.
That gave Dream a stronger starting position than a studio whose founding team had never shipped a game together. Balderton’s original investment memo
The experience extended beyond making a good game
Royal Match’s growth also illustrates how much happens after a game launches.
Investor Index Ventures described a business combining regular content releases with reliable technology and disciplined marketing. New levels and events gave existing players reasons to return, while marketing brought new players into the game.
Those activities have to work together. Attracting players becomes expensive if they leave quickly. Keeping existing players interested requires a continuing supply of well-designed content.
By January 2022, Index was leading a $255 million funding round that valued Dream at $2.75 billion. Index Ventures’ account
Other Peak teams started again too
Dream was the most prominent example, but the pattern appeared elsewhere.
Peak co-founder Rina Onur Şirinoğlu went on to lead Spyke Games. By January 2022, Griffin Gaming Partners had committed $55 million across its initial investments in the studio.
Griffin’s explanation centred on the team’s previous experience and ability to execute. The investor was backing people with a record of building games, even while their new business was still young. Reporting on Griffin’s investment
More recently, TaleMonster Games emerged from another group of former Peak colleagues. It raised a $7 million seed round in 2025, followed by a $30 million investment in early 2026. Türkiye’s investment office, KPMG’s Q1 2026 review
A successful employer can become the beginning of other companies
Former employees still face the uncertainty of building something people want. A successful previous game does not guarantee a successful next one.
But Peak helped give those founders an unusually useful starting point: colleagues they knew how to work with, experience serving international players and results investors could examine.
Its acquisition put a visible price on one company. The businesses founded by its former employees show how much of its value also travelled with the people.
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