Fidelity playing games with first investment from new £100 million fund

We are delighted to see that Davor Hebel has led Fidelity Growth Partners Europe’s investment in InnoGames, a leading developer and publisher of free-to-play online games. Fidelity is the sole investor. InnoGames currently has almost 50 million registered players across the globe playing successful titles such as Tribal Wars, The West and Grepolis.

Wild West Saloon from some Innogames game or another

This investment has been made from FGPE’s new £100m fund which was announced in January 2010. This is FGPE’s first venture and growth equity fund solely focussed on European technology companies in consumer and enterprise technologies and cleantech.

“InnoGames has every indication of a company that can become a global success,” said Davor Hebel, who led the investment for FGPE. “Companies such as InnoGames, with the potential and aspiration for greatness, are exactly the type we want to back. This is a fantastic kick-off investment for our new £100m European fund.”

“The quality of European entrepreneurship continues to impress us”, stated Simon Clark, Partner at FGPE. “We are pleased to be making this first investment from our European fund and are looking forward to accelerating our investment pace into fast growing European technology companies.”

InnoGames’ roots go back to 2003, when founders Eike and Hendrik Klindworth and Michael Zillmer developed the browser game Tribal Wars. In 2007, they founded InnoGames GmbH, which has grown rapidly to become one of the biggest developers and publishers of browser games globally. Today, InnoGames is highly profitable and has almost 50 million registered users across three successful game titles: Tribal Wars, The West, and Grepolis.

Davor is becoming recognised by many as one of the rising stars of the new European venture scene. Expect to hear more about him in the future.