The Walt Disney Company has bought Tapulous, a popular iPhone and iPad video game start-up company co-founded by Australian entrepreneur Andrew Lacy, for an undisclosed sum – but believed to run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Walt Disney Company has bought Tapulous, a popular iPhone and iPad video game start-up company co-founded by Australian entrepreneur Andrew Lacy, for an undisclosed sum – but believed to run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Melbourne-born Lacy, pictured, now lives in Palo Alto in California’s Silicon Valley where Tapulous has its HQ. Along with cofounder Bart Decrem, he will now join Disney as a senior vice president.
Tapulous No. 1 game, Tap Tap Revenge, is the most popular game series on Apple’s App Store, with more than 35 million downloads and more than a billion songs played.
There are versions for artists including Metallica, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and the Australian band Jet.
Tapulous sales were recorded at US$1 million a month in December 2009. A competitor, Playfish, was recently acquired by Electronic Arts for US$275 million.
Lacy worked for five years at McKinsey in Australia, Asia and Europe, helping build Internet businesses for several corporations and advising companies on digital distribution and content.
He holds law and commerce degrees from Melbourne University and an MBA from Silicon Valley’s Stanford University.
Walt Disney – whose biggest shareholder is Apple CEO Steve Jobs – said it acquired Tapulous to bolster its ability to create mobile games.
