Middlesbrough games developer SockMonkey Studios has been snapped up by Canada’s largest video game studio Behaviour Interactive for an undisclosed sum.
The company was founded in 2013 by Teesside University graduates Darren Cuthbert and Bob Makin, who set out to create a ‘superstudio’ in the Teesside town. They were joined by Darren Falcus, co-founder of Optimus Software, one of the first video game studios on Teesside, which was sold to US company Acclaim Entertainment. The deal provides an exit for NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF), and which achieved a fourfold return on investment.
Over the last few years the company has grown significantly, after sealing investment to grow its suite of original games. It secured £250,000 of investment from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund in June 2020, which it used to launch a demo version of its first original game, Fish Tanks.
