Agave Games

Develops and publishes free-to-play mobile puzzle games for global audiences.

Cover Block

Public sources

Field	Value
Name	Agave Games
Tagline	Develops and publishes free-to-play mobile puzzle games for global audiences [agavegames.com]
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey [TechCrunch, December 2024]
Founded	2021 [TechCrunch, December 2024]
Stage	Series A [TechCrunch, December 2024]
Business model	B2C
Industry	Media / Entertainment
Technology	Software (Non-AI)
Geography	Middle East / North Africa
Growth profile	Venture Scale
Founding team	Co-Founders (3+) [TechCrunch, December 2024]
Funding label	Series A
Total disclosed funding	$25.5 million [TechCrunch, December 2024]

Executive Summary

PUBLIC Agave Games develops and publishes free-to-play mobile puzzle games for a global consumer audience, and it merits investor attention now because its lead title, Find the Cat, reached reported breakout scale soon after launch while the company closed an $18 million Series A at around a $100 million post-money valuation [TechCrunch, December 2024] [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024]. Founded in Istanbul in 2021 by four former high-school friends, the company sits in a familiar but still valuable Turkish mobile-gaming pipeline: experienced operators leave established studios, form a focused team, and try to turn distribution and content iteration into durable consumer hits [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Business Insider, August 2022].

The current investment case rests largely on Find the Cat, a hidden-object game described by TechCrunch as a "Wheres Wally?"-style puzzle title, alongside a second public title, Wonder Link [TechCrunch, December 2024] [agavegames.com]. Public materials suggest the studios differentiation is less about technical novelty than about disciplined mobile-game execution, including reported use of AI-assisted artwork generation with human finishing, while leaving the codebase outside that workflow according to VC Magazine coverage [VC Magazine] [agavegames.com].

The team profile is a material part of the story. Burak Kar and Ouzhan Merdivenli previously held product, growth, and studio leadership roles at Good Job Games, while Ali Baran Terziolu previously led growth at Fugo Games and worked on Words of Wonders; Balderton linked the founders earlier work to casual puzzle titles with more than 2.5 billion collective installs [Balderton] [TechCrunch, December 2024].

On capital formation, Agave has disclosed $25.5 million across a $7 million seed in August 2022 and an $18 million Series A in December 2024, with Balderton Capital, Felix Capital, E2VC, and 500 Global named among investors [Business Insider, August 2022] [TechCrunch, December 2024]. The business model is straightforward B2C mobile free-to-play, which makes the next 12 to 18 months less about category explanation and more about proof of repeatability: investors should watch whether Find the Cat sustains download momentum, whether Wonder Link or subsequent titles broaden the portfolio, and whether the studio can translate headline consumer adoption into a multi-title franchise rather than a single-game outcome [Mustafa DAGLI - Vento Games | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] [Find The Cat - Spot It! - Apps on Google Play, retrieved 2026] [Wonder Link - Apps op Google Play, retrieved 2026].

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on TechCrunch, Business Insider, PocketGamer.biz, app store listings, LinkedIn posts, and company materials; several product and traction details remain single-source or company-linked.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Series A
Business Model	B2C
Industry / Vertical	Media / Entertainment
Technology Type	Software (Non-AI)
Geography	Middle East / North Africa
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Co-Founders (3+)
Funding	Total disclosed ~$25,500,000

How the Company Got Here

PUBLIC Agave Games presents as an Istanbul-based mobile game studio, founded in 2021, with a stated focus on developing and publishing free-to-play mobile puzzle games for a global audience [agavegames.com]. The public record is lean on corporate form, but the company website is clear on the operating identity and location, and founder references in public profiles consistently point back to the same venture founded by Alper Oner, Burak Kar, Oğuzhan Merdivenli, and Ali Baran Terzioğlu [agavegames.com].

The chronology that can be supported from company materials is straightforward. The company was founded in 2021 and built around casual mobile gaming; its public product set now includes Find the Cat and Wonder Link, both listed on the company website [agavegames.com]. Hiring pages and culture materials also place the operating center in Istanbul, which aligns with the company’s public description of itself as a Turkey-based studio building for international app store distribution [agavegames.com].

A fuller milestone sequence is better documented in press coverage than in company filings, so this section stays close to what the company itself publishes. On that narrower public evidence, the notable milestones are the 2021 founding, the establishment of Istanbul as headquarters, and the appearance of live consumer titles on the company site, indicating a move from studio formation into active publishing [agavegames.com]. The legal entity name is not established in the cited company materials used here.

Company-stated, unverified -- This section relies primarily on the company website, with no independent state filing or Crunchbase corroboration used in the section.

Product and Technology

Product surfaces

MIXED The product story is narrow in a way that usually helps early consumer studios. Agave Games describes itself as a developer and publisher of free-to-play mobile puzzle games for global audiences, and public sources consistently point to two named titles, Find the Cat and Wonder Link [agavegames.com] [Startup Intros]. The lead asset is Find the Cat, a hidden-object mobile game that TechCrunch described as a "Where's Wally?" style experience, built around locating cats in dense illustrated scenes [TechCrunch, December 2024].

The public traction evidence is concentrated almost entirely in that title. PocketGamer.biz reported that Find the Cat reached 10 million downloads in its first quarter, while Google Play shows 10M+ downloads for the app and 100K+ downloads for Wonder Link as of the retrieved listing dates [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [Find The Cat - Spot It! - Apps on Google Play, retrieved 2026] [Wonder Link - Apps op Google Play, retrieved 2026]. There is some date friction around launch timing, with TechCrunch placing Find the Cat in Q2 2024 and a LinkedIn post citing a September 2024 release, so the safer read is that the game scaled quickly in 2024 rather than anchoring to a single precise launch month [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Mustafa DAGLI - Vento Games | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026].

Technology approach

MIXED The technical claim that appears most often in public sources is about content production rather than core software architecture. Startup Intros says Agave uses artificial intelligence for initial artwork creation with human polishing afterward, and VC Magazine similarly reports that the company used AI heavily in the creative process while excluding AI from coding work [Startup Intros] [Agave Games Creates Find the Cat App and Secures $18 Million in Funding - VC Magazine, retrieved 2026]. That points to a workflow aimed at faster asset iteration for casual games, but it does not by itself establish any proprietary model, internal tooling advantage, or defensible engine layer.

What can be said about the stack is modest. The company website and press coverage support a mobile free-to-play game operation distributed through major app stores [agavegames.com] [TechCrunch, December 2024], and the open roles suggest ongoing hiring across game development, growth, product, motion design, and a software engineer role tied to performance marketing, which implies a data-driven user acquisition function rather than a purely creative studio model [agavegames.com/careers] [Duygucan Birinci - Agave Games | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. Any deeper stack description would be speculative, so the investable question is less about novel technology and more about whether Agave can repeatedly turn art, growth, and live-ops discipline into additional scaled titles.

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on a mix of company website claims, app store listings, and single-publication press reports, with partial corroboration on titles and downloads but limited independent verification of the underlying technology workflow.

Where the Demand Sits

Public sources Mobile puzzle gaming matters now because app-store distribution still gives small studios a path to global reach, but the market is increasingly won on hit velocity, user acquisition discipline, and retention rather than on broad category novelty alone [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Business Insider, August 2022].

The available source set does not include a named third-party TAM model for hidden-object or casual mobile puzzle games, so the cleanest way to frame market size is through analogous public market evidence anchored in Agave's own traction signals. The company is positioned against the consumer mobile games market, specifically free-to-play puzzle titles distributed through iOS and Android app stores [agavegames.com] [Business Insider, August 2022]. Within that frame, Agave's breakout title, Find the Cat, reportedly reached 10 million downloads in its first quarter, while Google Play shows 10 million-plus downloads for the title as of retrieval in 2026, which is a useful indicator that the addressable audience for simple hidden-object mechanics can extend well beyond a niche puzzle cohort [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [Find The Cat - Spot It! - Apps on Google Play, retrieved 2026].

Demand drivers in the cited reporting are practical rather than thematic. Agave's product strategy rests on globally legible gameplay, free-to-play distribution, and founders with prior casual-game growth experience from Good Job Games and Fugo Games, which matters because casual mobile categories reward teams that can iterate on creative, monetization, and paid acquisition with unusual speed [Balderton] [Business Insider, August 2022]. TechCrunch's description of Find the Cat as a "Where's Wally?"-style hidden-object game also points to a familiar acquisition loop: low-friction onboarding built on an already understood game mechanic, then scaled through app stores to broad consumer audiences [TechCrunch, December 2024].

Adjacent markets are close enough to matter. Agave's own site identifies both Find the Cat and Wonder Link as products, suggesting the studio is not confined to a single hidden-object format even if public traction today is concentrated in one title [agavegames.com]. The more relevant substitutes are therefore other casual mobile puzzle experiences, word games, and visual search games that compete for the same leisure minutes and the same paid user-acquisition budgets, rather than enterprise software or premium console gaming [Business Insider, August 2022] [Balderton].

Market lens	Public evidence	What it suggests
Free-to-play mobile puzzle distribution	Agave develops and publishes free-to-play mobile puzzle games for global audiences [agavegames.com]	The addressable market is consumer app-store gaming rather than a local or premium boxed-games niche.
Hidden-object demand signal	Find the Cat reached 10 million downloads in its first quarter [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024]	A simple hidden-object format can scale quickly if creative and distribution line up.
Ongoing storefront scale	Find the Cat shows 10M+ downloads on Google Play [Find The Cat - Spot It! - Apps on Google Play, retrieved 2026]	The game's traction was not limited to an isolated launch window.
Adjacent title footprint	Wonder Link shows 100K+ downloads on Google Play [Wonder Link - Apps op Google Play, retrieved 2026]	Agave has at least an early public footprint outside its lead title, though at much smaller scale.

The table is narrow, but the pattern is clear. Public evidence supports a market thesis built on global consumer reach and a hit-driven casual puzzle segment; it does not yet support a broader claim that Agave has diversified demand across multiple titles.

Macro and regulatory forces look manageable, though not irrelevant. Nothing in the sourced reporting points to a market shaped by sector-specific licensing or procurement barriers, which is one reason mobile gaming can scale quickly across borders once a title finds distribution fit [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Business Insider, August 2022]. The main external variables appear to be platform economics, app-store ranking dynamics, performance marketing efficiency, and creative production costs; on that last point, Agave has been described as using AI for initial artwork creation while keeping human polishing in the loop, which may help content throughput if the workflow proves repeatable across future titles [Startup Intros] [VC Magazine].

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on one independent news report for category traction, one platform listing for download corroboration, and company or investor materials for market framing.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED Agave Games is positioned less against enterprise software peers than against the hit-driven mobile puzzle ecosystem, where speed to creative iteration and user acquisition efficiency usually matter more than technical novelty alone [TechCrunch, December 2024] [agavegames.com].

The public record does not name a stable competitor set for Agave, which is itself informative. The company sits inside the broader casual and puzzle mobile games market, where the most relevant incumbents are established studios with repeatable puzzle production and live-ops experience, while adjacent substitutes include the wider universe of free-to-play consumer entertainment competing for the same app-store attention and ad inventory [Business Insider, August 2022] [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024]. Agave's own founder backgrounds place it closest to the Turkish casual gaming cluster around Good Job Games and Fugo Games, not because those companies are confirmed direct competitors in the source set, but because that is where the team's prior product and growth experience was built [Balderton] [TechCrunch, December 2024].

That distinction matters because Agave's edge today appears to be executional rather than structural. Public sources support three advantages: a founding team with prior casual-puzzle operating history, a breakout title in Find the Cat with reported early distribution momentum, and access to enough capital to keep testing follow-on titles rather than depending on a single launch window [Balderton] [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [TechCrunch, December 2024]. Still, each of those advantages looks perishable. Team quality can shorten iteration cycles, but it does not create store-level exclusivity; download momentum on one title can fade quickly in mobile gaming; and $25.5 million of disclosed funding is meaningful for a young studio, though not a moat if larger publishers decide to push harder into adjacent puzzle formats [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Business Insider, August 2022].

The clearest area of exposure is distribution dependence. Agave reaches consumers through app stores and the free-to-play mobile model, which means it does not appear to own a proprietary channel, a community platform, or an enterprise contract base that would cushion user acquisition volatility [Business Insider, August 2022] [agavegames.com]. The company's use of AI in artwork creation, as described in public reporting, may help content throughput, but the same sources do not show that this workflow is exclusive to Agave or hard for other studios to replicate [Startup Intros] [VC Magazine]. That leaves Agave most exposed to better-capitalized puzzle publishers, or former-category peers with proven live-ops discipline, if the hidden-object format becomes crowded and creative costs rise faster than retention improves [TechCrunch, December 2024] [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024].

The most plausible 18-month scenario is a sorting process within casual puzzle rather than a single category winner. If Find the Cat's early download curve converts into durable retention and efficient monetization, Agave is a plausible winner because it already has financing, product-market evidence on one title, and founders with relevant category pattern recognition [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Balderton]. If, instead, the hidden-object subgenre proves trend-driven and user acquisition costs rise, smaller studios without a broader portfolio are the most likely losers; under that scenario, Agave would face pressure to show that Wonder Link or another follow-on game can diversify traffic away from one breakout hit [agavegames.com] [Find The Cat - Spot It! - Apps on Google Play] [Wonder Link - Apps op Google Play].

Opportunity

Upside Case

PUBLIC The prize here is larger than a single hit game: if Agave Games can turn one breakout puzzle title into a repeatable studio system, it has a path to becoming one of the more valuable mobile gaming companies to emerge from Turkey’s casual puzzle ecosystem [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Balderton, August 2022].

The headline opportunity is straightforward. Agave already has one public sign that matters in consumer gaming, a title that appears to have found global demand quickly. TechCrunch reported that Find the Cat launched in Q2 2024, and PocketGamer.biz reported that it reached 10 million downloads in its first quarter [TechCrunch, December 2024] [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024]. Google Play also shows 10M+ downloads for the game, which does not confirm revenue or retention, but does corroborate broad consumer adoption at the top of the funnel [Google Play, retrieved 2026]. Against that backdrop, the company has raised $25.5 million in disclosed funding and was reported by TechCrunch as valued at around $100 million post-money in its Series A, enough capital to test whether the first title is the start of a franchise rather than an isolated success [TechCrunch, December 2024].

The more ambitious reading is that Agave is not only building games, but trying to industrialize a puzzle-game creation and growth engine around a founding team with prior exposure to scaled casual titles. Balderton said Burak Kar and Oğuzhan Merdivenli previously held growth and studio leadership roles at Good Job Games, while Ali Baran Terzioğlu previously led growth at Fugo Games and worked on Words of Wonders [Balderton, August 2022]. Balderton also tied the founders’ prior work to casual puzzle titles that collectively reached more than 2.5 billion installs, which does not transfer directly to Agave but does make the leap from one hit to a portfolio strategy more reachable than aspirational [Balderton, August 2022].

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Hidden-object franchise winner	Find the Cat becomes a durable global franchise, adding sequels, events, and adjacent content rather than fading after initial install momentum	The first game's early download velocity holds long enough to support ongoing live operations and content expansion [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [Google Play, retrieved 2026]	The title reached 10 million downloads in its first quarter, and TechCrunch identified it as the company's breakout product [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [TechCrunch, December 2024]
Multi-title puzzle studio	Agave uses Series A capital to launch additional puzzle titles and becomes a repeat hitmaker across subgenres	The $18 million Series A funds a broader release slate and team expansion [TechCrunch, December 2024]	The company already lists Wonder Link alongside Find the Cat, and Google Play shows Wonder Link at 100K+ downloads, suggesting work has started beyond a single app [agavegames.com] [Google Play, retrieved 2026]
Turkish casual gaming platform asset	Agave becomes one of the scarce scaled independent mobile game studios in its region, making it strategically relevant to larger global gaming buyers or late-stage investors	Continued proof that the team can pair creative output with growth execution after the Series A [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Business Insider, August 2022]	Investors including Balderton, Felix Capital, E2VC, and 500 Global have already backed the company, and the founding bench comes from studios with prior large-scale category exposure [TechCrunch, December 2024] [Balderton, August 2022]

What compounding looks like in this model is less about network effects and more about a studio flywheel. A successful free-to-play puzzle title creates user acquisition learnings, monetization data, art pipeline know-how, and cross-promotion inventory that can lower the cost and shorten the ramp for the next launch. Agave's public materials and coverage suggest the early ingredients are present: a breakout title in Find the Cat, a second public title in Wonder Link, and a team with growth and product backgrounds from Good Job Games and Fugo Games [TechCrunch, December 2024] [agavegames.com] [Balderton, August 2022]. The company's reported use of AI in art creation, with human polishing, could also matter if it reduces content production time for iterative puzzle development, though that claim is still lightly corroborated and should be treated cautiously [Startup Intros] [VC Magazine].

The size of the win is easiest to frame as an outcome range rather than a market-size claim, because no confirmed TAM figure is in the source set. TechCrunch reported Agave's Series A valued the business at around $100 million post-money in December 2024 [TechCrunch, December 2024]. If the company proves it can turn Find the Cat into a durable franchise and add additional scaled titles, an outcome several times above that level is conceivable, potentially into the mid-hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise value (scenario, not a forecast). That would require evidence not yet public, especially around retention, payer conversion, and repeat launch performance, but the current download trajectory and founder background are enough to keep that upside case analytically live [PocketGamer.biz, December 2024] [Balderton, August 2022] [TechCrunch, December 2024].

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies mainly on TechCrunch, PocketGamer.biz, Balderton, Google Play, and the company website, with some product-process detail still resting on company-adjacent or single-source reporting.

Sources