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Malmö games start-up wins Supercell backing

The Finnish mobile games giant Supercell has invested 35 million Swedish kronor ($2.6million) in a Malmö games startup, in a further sign the city's games incubators are attracting international attention.

Published: 3 May 2019 14:32 CEST

Malmö games start-up wins Supercell backing

Some of the Bouncy Tins designed by Luau. Photo: Screen Grab/Luau Games

Malmö's Luau Games, based in the city's Minc Incubator, has so far developed just one game, the as yet unreleased platform game Bouncy Tins.

The game, which features “tiny robots trying to make their way to freedom”, is designed to be easily played with a single finger on a mobile phone.

“I am super proud that we have gained the attention of the world's absolute best mobile games developer,” Luau co-founder Stéphane Stamboulis told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

“The plan is to develop a new mobile game, which will probably be on the market in around a year.”

Stamboulis and his co-founder Michel Savariradjalou, so far the company's only employees, plan to hire ten colleagues over the next six months.

The two Frenchmen previously worked as art directors at the Malmö offices of the Swedish games giant King.

READ ALSO: Women take over at Malmö startup accelerator

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Why you'll soon be able to set up a company in Spain with just €1 rather than €3,000

How you can start a business in Spain for just €1. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP

Currently, you must have to have a minimum of €3,000 to form a Limited Company in Spain, but if passed, the new bill will require you to only have €1, allowing the process to be completed electronically in just 10 days.

By doing this, the law includes measures to diversify sources of financing and promote non-bank financing, on which the majority of companies depend.

The bill’s main objective is to remove obstacles in the creation of companies in Spain.

The draft bill also looks at expanding activities for which you won’t need to obtain a license and promotes the use of electronic invoicing between companies and the self-employed, which will contribute to the digitisation of business activities.

Another aspect that the bill covers are ways to support financing for business growth, such as venture capital and crowdfunding platforms.

The Vice President and Minister of Economy and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, has indicated that this is one of the “most important” structural reforms of the Recovery and Resilience Plan which Spain submitted to the EU, and is aimed at “improving the performance and productivity of companies, as well as job creation “.

Defaults are one of the main problems that threaten business solvency for many Spanish companies because invoices are often not paid by the maximum legal term of 60 days. This problem particularly affects the self-employed, who allow large companies to take much longer to pay invoices for fear of losing more work or damaging relationships in the future.

For this reason, they do not usually demand legal compensations such as recovery costs or indemnities, even though it puts pressure on their margins.

To combat the wide non-compliance with this maximum period between companies, the new bill also suggests an incentive system for meeting payment deadlines and implementing electronic invoicing.

Together with the Startups Law and digital nomad visa, which the government also recently proposed, it aims to promote entrepreneurship and tackle the problems faced by Spanish companies, which makes it difficult for them to grow, go international or restructure debt.

READ ALSO: Tax cuts and special visas: Spain’s new law to attract foreign startups and digital nomads

Spain ranks only number 30 out of 190 in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report in terms of business climate, behind many other EU countries.

The bill is expected to reach the Congress of Deputies at the end of this year and if passed, will come into force in 2022.

COMPARE: Could Spain become the best country in the EU for digital nomads?

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