Playtika pledges $5m seed investment for Israeli tech start-up

Israel-based mobile game developer Playtika has invested $5m (£4.1m) to help accelerate the development of a Rocket League card collecting add-on.

Rocket League is a free-to-play vehicular football video game released in 2015 and is available on all home consoles and PCs.

The investment went to ProDrops, which was founded in 2021 by CEO Omer Ziv and CTO Ido Perach, who were both 25 years old at the time.

This investment by Playtika is a part of the company’s first round of funding to help create the aforementioned add-on for the popular video game. The firm has also seen investment from fellow Israel-based platform company Overwolf.

ProDrops hopes to release this trading card game in 2023.

Ziv commented: “The market is eager for products that will enrich the traditional gaming environment, strengthen and deepen the ecosystem and enable a more holistic experience.

“ProDrops sits squarely in this space as we aim to enrich the world of gaming for all – from streaming viewers to the world’s leading esports teams.”

Eric Rapps, chief strategy officer of Playtika, said: “Playtika is excited to lead ProDrops’ first funding round and contribute its expertise in gaming to help Omer and Ido realise their vision of building the leading digital collectables product for the esports world.”

This investment came after Playtika announced its financial results for Q1 2022, which revealed revenue growth of 6% year-on-year, reaching $676m.

This figure was also a 4% rise from the previous quarter’s $649m.