The mobile gaming industry has had incredible growth over the past decade. Now, this trend has only continued at full speed. Luckily, the global gaming stage is not a winner-takes-all market and is all about healthy competition.

Homa Games is a leading platform for creating and publishing mobile games. It was founded in 2018 by Daniel Nathan, Juan José Mostazo, and Olivier Le Bas. Ultimately, game development comes down to creativity and adaptability to what players like. As a result, this company saw great potential in combining both concepts.

A shared vision of providing talented creators with the necessary game development tools has led these three men to spearhead a platform with 500 million app downloads in less than 5 years.

Ambition, curiosity, and humility are the core values set by the founders. Those values define Homa Games’ culture. Find out what else they’ve brought to the company to make it an instant success in the hypercasual segment.

Education Matters

All three founders managed to be incredibly accomplished – both in their early education and later careers.

Daniel was very ambitious all his life. At one point, he even took intensive prep classes to help him perform better on entrance exams. He realized he had a knack for business and got a Master of Science from NEOMA Business School.

Juan is highly educated and a veteran of multiple startups in big data, scalable systems, and ad tech. He has one master’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Sevilla and another in Design and Creation of Video Games from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Finally, Olivier has also always been determined and had an excellent education. He got a bachelor’s degree from the Manhattan Institute of Management and a master’s degree in Digital Business Strategy from Grenoble Ecole de Management.

These academic experiences and accomplishments helped all of the founders eventually find their way around the entrepreneurial world.

Coming Together

For Daniel, the stories his parents told him growing up would provide some of the most important lessons. These were not fantastical bedtime fables but real accounts of his grandfathers and their businesses in Morocco and the UK.

With the help of the internet, he would soon discover entrepreneurship blogs and connect the articles he read there to those family stories he’d heard all his life. This would provide him with good role models in tech and give him the self-confidence to pursue all he wanted.

After he graduated, Daniel left France and moved to Berlin, looking for a fresh start. He then went straight into entrepreneurship and co-founded his first company, DataLift, in 2012. Daniel worked at the company for two and a half years. While he was there as Managing Director, Juan got a job as a systems developer.

Within these couple of years, however, Daniel realized that It was difficult to hire talent in Berlin, so he moved back to Paris. In 2014, Daniel and Juan decided to work together again and founded BidMotion. This is where Olivier comes into the picture, working as a International Business Development Manager at the new company.

In 2018, Daniel, Juan, and Olivier co-founded Homa Games and started to develop it with the same drive they’d had their entire lives.

Starting off Strong

Soon after the founding of the company in October 2018, Homa Games published its first free-to-play game, Balls VS Lasers. The game reached #1 in South Korea’s top charts, making it their first international hit.

But this success didn’t come about by sheer luck. To achieve results, the founders first had to resolve issues regarding low retention rates by analyzing the game’s metrics. Eventually, they managed to give the players what they craved – a more challenging and exciting user experience.

Currently, they have developed and published over 60 applications, some of which rank in the top 100 apps in more than 10 countries.

The Business Model

Since its inception, the company has mainly devoted resources to developing and publishing hyper-casual games, the most popular segment in mobile gaming.

In order to design and publish more diverse games, the company was able to raise funds on a few occasions. Today, Homa Games is a privately owned company. It's backed by 11 investors like King, NorthZone, Singular, and others.

In the short time of its existence, the company made a couple of acquisitions like Ducky Games and RisingHigh Academy. The latter offers multiple courses in game design, online level design workshops, leading publisher insights, and more.

By expanding their reach with these acquisitions and focusing on education, the founders believe that they are giving developers worldwide the prerequisite tools to create the next global hits.

The Homa Games team is now a lot more sizable. It's made up of talented developers, artists, and data analysts. Most importantly, they share the founder’s values and are experts in their domain, committed to the company's constant evolution.

Focus on Nurturing Creativity

The world of gaming moves fast, but Homa Games moves faster. They’ve found a way to produce a top-charting hit and take it from idea to publishing in less than 30 days, which allows them to release new titles at lightning speed.

With a platform that helps designers build their games in a few days and with the help of Homa’s in-house teams, any game entrepreneur can compete against big-name developers.

The founder’s vision was to offer a support layer on top of game engines. Game developers can build a prototype with Unity, and Homa Games can assess if the idea is further worth exploring. They operate within the no-code movement, meaning you can design a great game with no coding knowledge – a good idea can go a long way.

Daniel, Juan, and Olivier aimed to design a technology model that supports independent developers at all stages of game creation, including data and trends analysis. The company does this via features like Homa Labs, Homa Belly, and Homa Data.

The final goal is to build the best technology to the point where every developer will use Homa as a platform to design the next gaming sensation.

Homa Jams

Every now and then, Homa Games organize Jams. These are events where participants develop a game in a short period of time, ideally in a few hours to a day. Homa Jams also present an opportunity to win a prize for every step of development.

During these events, game creators will also have the chance to attend masterclasses from experts within the gaming industry, as well as a series of live sessions. They can ask questions, find inspiration and get additional game ideas.

Up until now, there have been 5 Jams, the last one sponsored by Google. By combining creativity and teamwork, Homa Games creates the perfect opportunity for talented individuals to show their skills to the world.

Full Speed Ahead

With headquarters in Paris, Homa is taking the gaming world by storm. In just five years, they have greatly expanded and cooperated with more than 200 external studios from all over the world.

Homa Games is constantly on the lookout for new talents. The company has already brought together numerous professionals from several fields to create a superb product. The company values transparency, open communication, and a developer’s intellectual property – all highly appreciated by small creators.

Daniel, Juan, and Olivier are dedicated to creating something consumers will enjoy and all game designers can benefit from. Their mission appears to be going well. Homa Games is on an upward trajectory that doesn’t seem to be stopping soon.

Whatever’s in store for hyper-casual gaming in the future, Homa Games is sure to be a part of it!