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Episode 122

Gaming Exit for $650MM to EA with Jason Kapalka

This week on The Exit: When Jason co-founded gaming start-up PopCap, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine exiting to EA for $650MM. The business started out as three guys creating games to sell back to the big gaming companies, but they quickly had to rethink that business model. The collapse of web games, combined with the dawn of Ecommerce in 2000, forced PopCap into selling their games online and business boomed. After 11 years, they decided to exit and found themselves at the center of a bidding war. Listen to find out why he believes the bidding war led to a successful exit for them. 


Jason founded PopCap Games with John Vechey and Brian Fiete in 2000, where they designed and produced games such as Bejeweled, Peggle, Zuma, and Plants vs Zombies. PopCap Games was sold to EA in 2011, and Jason is currently working on new games at Blue Wizard Digital, an indie game studio based in Comox, BC.


LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkapalka/

Twitter @JasonKapalka – https://twitter.com/jasonkapalka

Website – https://bluewizard.com/

 

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The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

YOUR HOST

Steve McGarry

An entrepreneur, content creator, and investor based in sunny Tampa, Florida. In 2015, while living in San Francisco, Steve sold his first fintech startup LendLayer to Max Levchin’s (founder of PayPal) consumer finance company Affirm.

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