Rovio CEO's grandparents remortgaged flat to save Angry Birds

By Fred Dutton Published 23 February, 2012

Risky investment turned into nice little nest egg.

Angry Birds studio Rovio was in such a precarious financial position while developing its planet-smashing smartphone phenomenon that its owner's grandparents remortgaged their flat to help get the game finished.

Speaking in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed revealed that the company was close to ruin after years without a hit and Angry Birds might have been its last roll of the dice.

With funds dwindling, the company's chief backer, Mikael's father Kaj, suggested refinancing his grandparent's home to raise some cash.

"He told me that he wanted to mortgage my grandparents' flat so he could put some more money in the company to keep it afloat," he explained.

"That was pretty tough. I certainly did not want to be the person responsible for putting my grandparents on the street.

"Just looking at the odds, we shouldn't take that kind of a risk," Hed remembered thinking, but Kaj went ahead regardless.

"Now I am glad he did, but it was a big gamble."

That sounds about right - the game has since been downloaded over 700 million times and the developer is valued at over $6 billion. Kaj still owns around a 70 per cent stake in the company - here's hoping granny and grandpa Hed have received their dues too.

The next outing for the franchise is Angry Birds Space, due on 22nd March.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 3 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • monty_79 #1 3 months ago

    Ah, good luck to them.

  • darkmorgado #2 3 months ago

    Another day, another story about Angry Birds.

    Please, please, please stop giving these publicity whores the attention they so crave EG, you're giving them legitimacy they really do not deserve.

  • Triggerhappytel #3 3 months ago

    "and the developer is valued at over $6 billion"

    I'm sorry what?! I appreciate that Angry Birds is a smash hit and they're successfully expanding the brand outside of games, but I don't believe for a second that the company's worth more than EA or even Zynga.

  • FenderMaster #4 3 months ago

    I would never let my grandparents do something like that, and honestly I have no repect for anyone who would put their grandparents in that position.

  • Blootor #5 3 months ago

    And now we know who to blame :)

  • Acrid #6 3 months ago

    Who gives a fuck

  • cheeky-sod #7 3 months ago

    Good for them.

  • dirtysteve #8 3 months ago

    That $6billion must be a typo!

  • wilding #9 3 months ago

    @darkmorgado

    Whenever I see a comment from you, it's almost always negative (I'm talking about context, not ratings here, though you do seem to get downvoted a lot). How is Angry Birds not legitimate? Is it because there are other "Crash the Castle," type games that do it better?

    If that's the case, then Sonic the Hedgehog isn't legitimate, because his entire existence is based off the success of Mario. They're two different games, but there's a lot of similarities between the two.

    You can draw those kinds of comparisons between a lot of games these days because - surprise! - with gaming as we know it having been popular for a number of decades now, there are very few ideas that are truly original.

  • d0x #10 3 months ago

    I'm so tired of hearing how they are worth all this money. They have 1 game that will eventually get stale...then what? Also the guys running it are full of themselves and think they have the entire future of gaming figured out...

    You have 1 hit!! Better ride it till it dies cause you won't strike gold again. I wish all developers great success...but not rovio. Their attitude and over inflated egos make me ill

  • swills #11 3 months ago

    @darkmorgado is right.

    Damn these publicity whores telling cute anecdotes about the support and belief they got from their families! Get back to your undeserving illegitimate work, slackers!

  • allydelally #12 3 months ago

    They're doing a bit of a George Lucas on this one, and to be fair it's paying off massively. I moved to Korea recently and you wouldn't believe the amount of kids running around with Angry Birds characters plastered on their clothes. Forget that they're charmless, ugly, badly designed monstrosities, these guys have turned it into a true international brand.

  • ctankep #13 3 months ago

    @wilding

    I don't really buy that "there are very few original ideas left" argument that gets trotted out every -time somebody justifies making a clone of something else. It's more a business decision to just do away w/ the most difficult and potentially risky part of game development. People copy each other's mechanics to reduce the cost and time to market.

    Just look at the mechanics on most iPhone / iPad games. They are mostly trying to shoe-horn older games into a completely different interface and not too many people are trying to create fully featured games that are built specifically for multi-touch or using the gyroscope. There's so much you can do but it's more of a risk.

    If you've read some of the post -mortems "Angry Birds" was designed from the outset to be a super -calculated effort taking the mechanics from Armor Games' "Crush the Castle" which was already charting in the appstore. Grandma and pa better be grateful to the media and word of mouth which kicked it off.


    -- Chuan

  • Guv #14 3 months ago

    @dirtysteve Doubt it, I'm not sure it's 6 but I know Zynga tried to buy them for $2.25 billion not so long ago. Strange old world aint it...

  • galerian86 #15 3 months ago

    @d0x
    The problem is, it haven't. Say what you like about the game, but almost everybody that I know of, have heard/downloaded/ play the crap out of Angry Birds.

    Heck, the first thing most of them search for when they get a smartphone/tablet? Angry Birds.

    Angry Birds is like a pop song. People loves it, no matter how much the same it is.

  • Neil__ #16 3 months ago

    I guess we're supposed to throw cash at them now then.
    Rich people whining about tough times always makes me hate them.

  • Wyrm #17 3 months ago

    Angry Birds is a perfectly decent cheapo mobile game, it's the best example of HATE IT BECAUSE IT'S POPULAR that I've ever seen.

  • Ginger #18 3 months ago

    @Triggerhappytel exactly what I was thinking. 6 billion? Time to cash out

  • Neil__ #19 3 months ago

    Post deleted at 06:58:00 24-02-2012

  • Neil__ #20 3 months ago

    @Wyrm
    I don't hate it I just think it's so utterly boring and repetitive it couldn't entertain a 10 year old retard for more than an hour.
    I bet you found it gripping for a lot longer though.,
    Edited by Neil__ at 24/02/12 @ 06:58

  • Laythe_AD #21 3 months ago

    That's pretty low. >.>

  • wizlon #22 3 months ago

    Rovio literally sold their grandmother for Angry Birds, that is hilarious.

  • skunkfish #23 3 months ago

    I (dare I say it?) 'like' Angry Birds. I'm sorry, I feel like I've let everyone down but it's just kinda... What's that word? Oh yeah, fun. There I said it.

    I don't see why people are getting so worked up over a 69p game that they don't even own.

  • DiscoDave #24 3 months ago

    @Neil__
    I don't get the hate. Of course it's annoying and it's made them oodles of money. But if enough people buy your $0.50 game, then that's the power of the internet. It's crazy but so what? Calling them undeserving and the game boring just makes everyone look like jealous little kids.

    I've played it for much more than an hour and I don't think I'm a 10-yr old retard.

    Look at the other side. Lots of money generated by many people chipping it a little bit through the internet has enabled Double Fine to finance a new point and click adventure. Take the good with the 'bad'.

    Don't be a hater (that comment is not just aimed at Neil). It's not good for your soul.

  • iamtheoneneo #25 3 months ago

    this is a really old news story...It has been doing the rounds for at least a year? what gives EG?

  • skunkfish #26 3 months ago

    @iamtheoneneo The Wall Street Journal article is new though, even if the news isn't.

    If you thought $6 billion was over valuing the company the article actually states "Kaj Hed owns nearly 70 percent of the company, worth by some estimates between $6 billion and $9 billion.".

  • BlueHaze_Sean #27 3 months ago

    Post deleted at 13:42:42 24-02-2012

  • fizzyfish #28 3 months ago

    [Game makers] think you can make hit after hit. We know how hard it is to do that, so we are betting everything on Angry Birds.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-20-rovio-betting-everything-on-angry-birds
    This story puts remarks like that into perspective. Whatever you think of Angry Birds, after so many failures, of course Rovio are going to want to cling onto this cash cow.

    I just hope Mikael has remembered to pay his grandparents back. Maybe moved them into a slightly nicer flat.

  • DurzoBlint #29 3 months ago

    It's a reminder of the oft-forgotten fact that most iOS games have margins that are razor-thin or non-existent.

  • Porcupine_I #30 3 months ago

    I call for a minute in silence for every developers Grandparents who live on the street now, because it didn't work out.