tinyBuild Inc. is an American publisher and developer of indie games based in Bellevue, Washington.
The company was established by Alex Nichiporchik and Tom Brien in 2011 to expand Brien's game No Time to Explain into a commercial release. Building from the success of the game's Steam release in 2013, tinyBuild partnered with DoubleDutch Games for the development and release of SpeedRunners, which landed tinyBuild further publishing deals. Between March 2020 and 2023, tinyBuild acquired or established a number of new studios as part of an expansion strategy. However, since 2023, due to the poor performance of many of its subsidiaries in addition to financial difficulties, tinyBuild has closed multiple studios as part of a restructuring and downsizing effort, laid off employees at others and sold off 2 subsidiaries. No further M&A activity has taken place after 2023. It became a public company on the Alternative Investment Market in March 2021.
Contents
History
tinyBuild was founded in 2011 by Alex Nichiporchik (Latvian: Aleksandrs Ņičiporčiks) and Tom Brien. Nichiporchik came from Latvia and had been a professional Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos player in the early 2000s, which made him enough money to drop out of high school and pursue a career in video game journalism. While an employee of Spil Games in the Netherlands in 2010, he became interested in Flash games. He came across Super Meat Boy, which led to him to want to get into the business. Nichiporchik discovered No Time to Explain, a Flash game by Tom Brien, which he thought could be as successful as Super Meat Boy. Nichiporchik and Brien established tinyBuild in 2011 as a developer to expand No Time to Explain into a commercial release. The company headquarters were based in the Netherlands with Nichiporchik until both relocated to Seattle later on.
tinyBuild launched a crowdfunding campaign for the game via Kickstarter and raised US$26,000 from a $7,000 target. tinyBuild had agreed with the Russian publisher Buka Entertainment that the latter would publish retail versions of No Time to Explain in Russia, get the game released on Steam, and grant tinyBuild $24,500 in royalties in advance. However, Buka Entertainment failed to communicate with tinyBuild until stating that it was forced to cancel the project, withholding the royalties. As No Time to Explain could not be launched via Steam, tinyBuild released it independently. The game recouped its development cost but did not turn a significant profit. tinyBuild went into hiatus for nearly a year thereafter until Steam introduced the Greenlight process for game approval. No Time to Explain became one of the first games to be greenlit for Steam in 2013 and had a successful release on the platform. Nichiporchik stated this experience burnt out tinyBuild, which was no longer interested in pursuing development but did not want to waste the newfound success. The company invested in, co-developed, and published the game SpeedRunners, which led to more developers pitching their games to tinyBuild, incrementally turning the company into a publisher. To expand its publishing operations, it hired the video game journalist Mike Rose in December 2014.
tinyBuild obtained $3.75 million in seed funding from Makers Fund in April 2018, followed by $15 million in series A funding from an undisclosed investor in February 2019. The company established its first internal studio, HakJak Studios, with Guts and Glory developer Jed "HakJak" Steen in Boise, Idaho, in March 2020. Nichiporchik believed that indie game publishers like tinyBuild would have to move away from "transactional relationships"—wherein the developer and publisher would work on one game and then move on—and instead build long-term relationships with the developers. At this time, tinyBuild had 150 employees. tinyBuild acquired the development team behind Hello Neighbor from Dynamic Pixels in July 2020 for an undisclosed sum to establish the studio Eerie Guest Studios in Hilversum. The company invested more than US$15 million into the Hello Neighbor franchise. tinyBuild invested US$3 million into Hologryph, the team behind the Hello Neighbor multi-player spin-off, Secret Neighbor in November 2020. In February 2021, tinyBuild acquired three studios it had previously worked with: We're Five Games, Hungry Couch, and Moon Moose.
tinyBuild announced in February 2021 that it was to pursue an initial public offering on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "TBLD". At the time, Nichiporchik owned 61.1% of the company, while the Chinese company NetEase owned 14.3%. The company's shares began trading on March 9, 2021, with an initial market capitalization of £340 million.
tinyBuild acquired the studio Animal in August 2021 for $10.2 million; Animal had been working on publishing their upcoming game Rawmen through tinyBuild.
tinyBuild acquired Versus Evil and Red Cerberus in November 2021.
The company acquired the intellectual property rights to the bulk of Bossa Studios' games including Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, for US$3 million in August 2022. In 2022, it acquired Konfa Games during the development of Despot's Game.
In April 2022, tinyBuild acquired DeMagic Games, the studio developing Hello Neighbor: Nicky's Diaries at the time, for $1.52 million.
In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent war, tinyBuild effectively relocated more than 100 people.
In December 2022, tinyBuild acquired Scythe Studios, the developer of Happy's Humble Burger Farm.
In March 2023, tinyBuild acquired NotGames, the studio behind Not For Broadcast, for an upfront cash payment of $1.5 million, plus up to $4.2 million in earn-out subject to financial targets.
In June 2023, in its H1 2023 financial report, tinyBuild said it had underperformed. The company blamed lower revenue from platform deals due to decreased investment in non-AAA titles, and the shortfall of its subsidiaries Versus Evil and Red Cerberus (which it acquired in 2021). tinyBuild said it would be moving away from third-party publishing and focusing more on own-IP. Following the report, the company's shares fell 78.8%. The company's overall stocks had declined 92.86% since 2021.
On December 5, 2023 tinyBuild announced it had resolved a legal dispute with Versus Evil for $3.5 million plus legal costs. Versus Evil filed suit alleging tinyBuild breached the acquisition agreement by failing to make timely capital contributions since 2022, withholding required funds, and not providing the promised level of material support. Steve Escalante, general manager of Versus Evil, separately claimed that $3 million in shares and options had not been paid. Following the settlement, Escalante left Versus Evil.
In the same period, tinyBuild lowered its revenue forecasts for FY 2023, citing weaker-than-expected trading in October and Q4. Several major contracts anticipated had failed to materialize before the end of 2023 and were delayed indefinitely, the company also said. CEO Alex Nichiporchik additionally attributed the challenges to weak demand for video games and a reversal of market dynamics. Stronger demand during the 2020-2022 pandemic period had previously benefited tinyBuild.
Later on that same day, tinyBuild laid off between 10%-30% of its staff per studio and shuttered three subsidiaries in the following weeks, citing continued financial challenges and lackluster financial results. The first 2 shuttered subsidiaries were HakJak Studios and We're Five Games. NotGames was sold to an unknown buyer, with tinyBuild retaining the game's intellectual property rights.
Later that same month, Atari invested $2 million in tinyBuild in exchange for a 7.5% stake in the company. A day after, on December 22, 2023, Versus Evil was shut down. In January 2024, tinyBuild nearly ran out of cash but secured $12.3 million in emergency funding from investors. Following this, tinyBuild closed Moon Moose, the developer of Cartel Tycoon, in February 2024, and shut down DeMagic Games, the developer of Hello Neighbor: Nicky's Diaries, in March 2024. In April 2024, tinyBuild sold the intellectual property rights to Totally Reliable Delivery Service to Atari, followed by the sale of the Surgeon Simulator intellectual property rights in June 2024. In April 2025, tinyBuild sold Red Cerberus to TestFly for an initial price of $1.5 million, which was later reduced to $1.1 million after standard post-completion adjustments.
In 2025, tinyBuild became once again profitable with a positive adjusted EBITDA and stronger operating cash flow. In that same year, tinyBuild had nearly 200 employees, excluding those at Red Cerberus.
In June 2026, Griffin Gaming Partners bought a 3.24% equity stake in tinyBuild.