This Week’s Top Three: Online gaming, logistics, and Icelandic biotech

Family offices pile into online gaming group

Five family/principal investment offices joined some big institutional investors to back Los Angeles online gaming group Scopely in a Series E deal worth $340 million. 

Declaration Partners/Declaration Capital, the private investment office of private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, joined fellow financier Loius Bacon’s investment group Moore Strategic Ventures, Todd Boethly’s Eldridge, Steve Case’s Revolution, and Daniel Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners in the round. 

Altogether 15 groups back the deal, including institutional big hitters Blackrock, Baillie Gifford, Greycroft, and Wellington Management. 

Launched in 2011, Scopely creates and publishes games like Star Trek Fleet Command, Looney Tunes World of Mayhem, WWE Champions 2019, The Walking Dead, YAHTZEE With Buddies, and Wheel of Fortune: Free Play, and many others. 

It’s already attracted nearly a billion dollars in funding and the lasted round, which very much looks like a pre-IPO/trade sale one, values the business at $3.3 billion. 

Revolution backed Scopely in earlier rounds, so did Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Peter Chernin’s The Chernin Group, and Li Ku-shing’s Horizons Ventures. 

Logistics/robotics group attracts family-backed venture group and old family office money

Koch Disruptive Technologies, the venture group owned by Chase Koch, the son of multi-billionaire Charles Koch, and Henry Crown and Company, a Chicago-based family office, have backed Outrider, an autonomous yard operations and logistics company.

The two joined four other investors in a Series B round worth $65 million, which Koch Disruptive led. Based in Denver, Colorado, Outrider has already attracted more than $100 million in funding, despite only being three years old. Koch Disruptive backed the group in an early round. 

Henry Crown & Co was set up as the investment office of industrialists Henry Crown in 1959, making it one of the oldest family offices in the world. Crown made his fortune by setting up the industrial group Material Service Corporation, which merged with General Dynamics in 1959 and led to Crown owning a majority stake for a time in the huge American conglomerate.

Henry Crown & Co now manages the money of the second, third and fourth generation of the Crown family. James Crown, Henry Crown’s grandson, is the current president of the Chicago-based investment group, which has a staff of more than 30 professionals.

Icelandic biotech group attracts one of Europe’s biggest family office investors

Athos, the Strüngmann brothers family office, has backed Alovtech, a Reykjavik, Iceland-based biotech group. 

Athos participated with other investors in an unspecified round worth $65 million for Alovtech, which is looking to raise $100 million, according to the group. 

Alovtech is focused on developing biosimilar versions of monoclonal antibodies molecules.

Athos, the family office of brothers Thomas and Andreas Strüngmann, the German pharma billionaires, is one of the biggest family capital groups investing in biotech in Europe.