Three Melons
A game studio developing free-to-play web and smartphone games with a social component.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Three Melons was a video game development studio established in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December 2005. The founding team included Mariano Suarez Battan as CEO, Patricio Jutard as CTO, and co-founders Augusto Petrone, Pablo Mayer, and Nicolas Cuneo. The company initially specialized in creating 'advergames' for major international clients such as LEGO, MTV, Disney, and Coca-Cola, developing over 50 titles in this capacity. One of its notable successes from this period was "LEGO Indiana Jones Adventures," which attracted 18 million users globally.
The founders, including Patricio Jutard who has a background in computer science engineering, steered the company with an international perspective from its inception. This global focus was a key differentiator in the Argentinian tech scene at the time. The company secured $600,000 in a seed funding round in March 2009, led by Banco Santander, which enabled a strategic shift from a service-based model to developing its own intellectual property. This pivot was aimed at creating and launching original social games. The studio utilized its proprietary 'Melon Daiquiri' development framework and was an early adopter of the Unity 3D engine to produce high-quality browser-based games.
The company's primary business was developing and publishing online games for social platforms and smartphones. Its revenue model transitioned from third-party development contracts to focusing on its own titles, such as the Facebook soccer game "Bola," which gained over 145,000 daily active users around the 2010 World Cup. This success captured the attention of the burgeoning social gaming industry. In March 2010, Three Melons was acquired by the US-based social gaming company Playdom for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition marked a significant milestone for the Argentinian tech ecosystem. Shortly after, in July 2010, Playdom itself was acquired by The Walt Disney Company, integrating Three Melons into the Disney Interactive Media Group. Following the acquisition, the founders went on to pursue other ventures; for instance, Patricio Jutard later co-founded the successful online collaboration platform MURAL and the venture capital firm Newtopia VC.
Keywords: Three Melons, game development, advergames, social gaming, Playdom, Disney Interactive, Mariano Suarez Battan, Patricio Jutard, Buenos Aires startup, Unity 3D, online games, browser games, Facebook games, Bola, LEGO Indiana Jones Adventures, Melon Daiquiri, video game studio, game technology, Latin American tech, startup acquisition