Gaming unicorn Moon Active lays off dozens of employees despite record $2 billion revenue in 2024
Gaming unicorn Moon Active lays off dozens of employees despite record $2 billion revenue in 2024
The developer of Coin Master and Family Island said global staff cuts are part of an “organizational restructuring implemented to align the company’s structure with its strategy."
Gaming unicorn Moon Active recently laid off dozens of employees in Israel and worldwide. The company operates a large development center in Kyiv, along with offices in Romania, Belarus, and Lithuania, and employs approximately 2,500 people. In 2021, the company was valued at $5 billion after raising $300 million in a secondary funding round.
Since its founding in 2011, Moon Active has raised only $10 million in equity funding, with all subsequent funding rounds directed toward secondary sales of shares by employees and investors. The $300 million secondary round in November 2021 was led by Insight Partners, which invested $125 million in Moon Active at the beginning of 2020 at a valuation of $1.25 billion. Moon Active’s investors also include Andalusian Private Capital, Gigi Levy-Weiss, Guy Gamzu and David Alliance.
Moon Active's flagship game is Coin Master, which last year surpassed the $6 billion mark in income, according to a report by Sensor Tower Store Intelligence. Coin Master was released in 2016 and the title has raked in around $1.2 billion annually since 2020.
Coin Master is a mobile game in which players spin a slot machine to collect coins, allowing them to construct and upgrade their villages. Additionally, players can raid other players' villages to steal resources and progress further in the game.
Moon Active stated: "The company has grown significantly in recent years, completing several mergers and acquisitions, and ended 2024 with record revenues exceeding $2 billion. In the first quarter of 2025, an organizational restructuring was implemented to align the company’s structure with its strategy."
Moon Active, which is also behind popular title Family Island, acquired the mobile game Zen Match, along with the associated team located in Istanbul, from a Turkish mobile game developer, Good Job Games, in December 2022. The scope of the deal was not revealed, but was estimated to be in the region of $100-150 million.
