Devolver Digital Wants to Go Private Again, Five Years After a $950 Million IPO
Devolver Digital's stock has dropped 96% since it went public in 2021, and the publisher now wants out of the stock market entirely.
The Numbers
Devolver went public on London's AIM market in November 2021 at a valuation of £694.6 million, about $950 million. Its market cap now sits at £34.64 million, about $46.63 million. That's a 96.27% drop in share price over five years.
The Process
Shareholders vote on delisting at Devolver's AGM on September 8. If approved, the company stops trading publicly on September 16. Going private also requires buying out shareholders who aren't part of the company, and Devolver's own estimate puts the ongoing savings from leaving the public market at around $1.6 million a year.
What Devolver Is Actually Saying
Management points to two things: a share price that "does not reflect the true market value" of the label, and five years spent chasing growth targets in what it calls a turbulent market. A company spokesperson framed the move as freeing up Devolver's finance, legal, and executive teams to focus on the business itself instead of what the public market demands.
The Model the Market Never Fit
Devolver publishes niche indie games. Most of them break even or turn a modest profit. A small number go viral and carry the rest. That's a workable business for a private company. It's a much harder pitch to shareholders who expect the number to be bigger than last year's, every year, regardless of which games happened to break out.
The Same Problem, a Much Bigger Company
Roblox just posted its own version of this fight. The platform lost around $70 billion in market value over the past year after its own CFO said engagement had shifted away from high-monetizing viral hits toward experiences that make the platform less money. Daily active users fell from a peak of 152 million to 123 million. Roblox dwarfs Devolver in size, and it's dealing with the identical mismatch: a hit-driven business answering to a market that wants steady numbers on a quarterly clock.
What Happens Next
If the vote passes on September 8, Devolver stops trading nine days later, at a fraction of the valuation it started with in 2021.
