Zynga announced on Tuesday it has bought Superlabs, the incubator founded by Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga. Pincus founded the incubator before returning to the game maker, which he co-founded in April. Along with Superlabs, the game maker also acquired super.io, which also belongs to Pincus.
Zynga is looking to acquire talent
As a part of the deal, Zynga can “secure the rights in tech and related IP” that were created at the lab, says the report.
Although the deal is just a talent acquisition with a price of $1, it could amount to a lot more depending on the employee compensation packages and stock grants, says a report from Re/code. Grants given to the nine employees could total to 1.1 million shares of Zynga, according to the filing with the SEC.
On June 15, 2015 the social game maker closed the agreement with the SF Incubator. Under the agreement, Zynga’s Board of Directors formed a special committee with independent directors Stan Meresman and Regina Dugan to determine whether or not to strike an agreement, and to negotiate the terms of the agreement. Based on the recommendation of the special committee, all the directors of the company supported the transaction.
As of now, it is not clear what roles will be assigned to the employees from Incubator, nor what the company is expecting from the Superlabs technology.
Superlabs had a small presence
Pincus founded the Incubator after stepping down as CEO of Zynga back in April 2014. Pincus invested around $2.2 million in Superlabs, according to SEC documents, to build on his ideas and projects.
Superlabs clearly had a limited number of days as a standalone company. In a blog post in November Pincus said, “I’ve always been passionate about working with great teams on products that have the potential to matter in people’s lives.” He said that a similar spark encouraged the Superlabs team as well. The company was focused on connecting and empowering people by nurturing their ideas, and at the same time was looking to partnering and invest in other ideas.
Zynga most recently acquired NaturalMotion, a mobile game and technology developer, for $527 million in January last year.
On Monday, Zynga shares closed down 1.64% at $2.99, but year to date, the stock is up almost 10%.
