Oberon Does Some Layoffs; Streamlines Operations; Raises A Big Round; Buys Two Studios

Oberon Media, the New York City-based online and mobile casual games provider backed by big money, has some some restructuring of its operations, after buying a slew of companies in the last year or so, and raising additional funding, we have learned. Our sources say it will lay off about 75 employees, across various divisions and studios that it owns, as integration of various companies it bought has happened.

The total headcount will remain about the same or higher than before (about 500), because it just bought two more studios in Eastern Europe: Kenjitsu in Russia and Friend Games in the Ukraine. The financial details of these acquisitions were not disclosed, but Globes cited sources that it totaled $20 million. This means it has bought five companies in the last 10 months, others being mobile gaming firm I-Play and PixelPlay, the interactive TV games producer.

Also, the company has raised “a major round of financing led by several of the leading financial institutions: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Oak Investment Partners among others and have a substantial cash position to execute our business plan,” the company spokesperson told me in an e-mail, though refusing to confirm the exact nature of layoffs. Some of these are possibly from I-Play, which is based in UK, to the cheaper talent elsewhere. According to the company, “We are relocating some of our front line content and platform development activities to our existing and new facilities in Kiev, St. Petersburg and Bucharest.”

Oberon was founded in 2003 and is funded by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Oak Investment Partners and Lehman Brothers.

Disclaimer: I-Play, part of Oberon, is a sponsor of our CTIA MocoMixer event.

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