Roblox is adding to its acquisition streak — and its quest to build out the metaverse — by purchasing a Southern California startup that adds social elements to games.
The San Mateo game developer paid more than $17 million in stock for Hamul, a Walnut-based startup. Roblox initially indicated the stock offering was worth nearly $30 million in an SEC filing on Thursday but amended it the following day. It's unclear if there was any cash or debt included in the deal.
Roblox (NYSE: RBLX) announced the acquisition April 5 from its Twitter account but didn't disclose any details. The company didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Hamul integrates elements like emojis, sounds, video and chat into game play. According to its Reddit page, it works with most games available on Windows 10 and does not require a webcam.
"We started Hamul as a group of friends who were passionate about gaming and building communities,” the startup said in a statement posted to its website. “We understood that playing games online is more fun when you can do it together and make new friends. We set out to improve the quality of relationships by offering new ways for people to express themselves and connect to like-minded gamers."
"We will sunset the Hamul product in April 2022 and all existing user data will be deleted," the statement continued.
Hamul was valued at $20.2 million in August after it raised $5.2 million in seed funding, according to PitchBook.
In August, Roblox also announced it was acquiring San Francisco-based startup Guilded, a video and chat platform similar to Discord, for an undisclosed amount.
According to PitchBook, Guilded had raised a little over $10 million through a Series A in 2020, and the Roblox acquisition was worth $90 million. And an SEC filing from August indicated the deal included nearly $39 million in stock.
Roblox has acquired three other Bay Area startups since 2018, according to Crunchbase: video conferencing platform Bash, mobile game performance optimizer Packetzoom and 3D avatar creator Loom.ai. It also acquired Los Angeles-based "cognitive assessment" startup Imbellus in 2020.
