Bold Games raises $6 million to scale Market Match

Bold Games raised $6 million to grow its team and scale Market Match, the Istanbul studio’s debut sort-puzzle mobile game. The round was led by Arcadia Gaming Partners, Makers Fund and e2vc, with JIMCO and several angel investors also taking part.

The studio was founded by Ulas Mergen, Atakan Tuglu, Candas Demirel and Baris Incesu, a quartet whose résumés run through Bigger Games, Agave Games, Dream Games, ZeptoLab and Rollic. That background matters in mobile because all four have worked inside the kind of companies that know how to turn a simple mechanic into something players keep opening day after day.

Bold Games said it would use the new capital to expand headcount and push Market Match further. Mergen framed the studio’s aim around longevity, saying, “Our ambition is to build games that players can love for years.” For mobile players, that points to a game designed around repeat sessions and steady iteration, not just a launch spike.

Makers Fund founding partner Michael Cheung backed that view, saying the team had already shown it could create innovative new casual games. The financing gives Bold Games room to do more of that work at larger scale, which usually means more design bandwidth, more live tuning and a better shot at turning a promising core loop into a game that can hold attention.

The raise also fits a larger pattern in Türkiye’s mobile market. PocketGamer.biz reported in February 2025 that Turkish games companies had raised $935 million in capital since 2020 across 132 funding rounds. AppMagic’s Türkiye’s Mobile Gaming Landscape 2026 found that puzzlers accounted for almost 97% of Turkish developers’ total mobile revenue, a reminder that the country’s breakout strength still sits squarely in the genre where Market Match lives.

That focus on puzzles comes as the wider mobile business keeps chasing efficiency as much as raw downloads. Sensor Tower’s State of Gaming 2026 said mobile games were downloaded 95,000 times per minute in 2025, even as the industry increasingly shifted from download growth toward monetization. Bold Games is stepping into that environment with a familiar Turkish strength and a clear bet: a sort-puzzle game with enough depth to keep players around.