Starbreeze to raise £21.8m to support further development of Payday 3

Starbreeze today announced that it would raise SEK 250m (£21.8m) via a new share issue. The money will be used, pending the agreement of the AGM in August, to support the continued development of Payday 3 and to bolster its financial position.

The move comes in part due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Which the company states caused a “delay in completing the publishing agreements during the first half of 2020.”

It notes in a statement that it’s in negotiations with “several leading publishing partners” and that “negotiations are well progressed” but that travel restrictions and a decline in business activity “timing and time needed to complete negotiations regarding attractive publishing agreements have been impacted.”

In short, it couldn’t get the deal it wanted and it’s attributing that, in part at least, to the pandemic. Maybe whoever holds Epic’s epic cheque book left it back in the office.

The money will be spent largely on continued development of the game, allowing Starbreeze to move forward without a publisher until it can find the right deal with the rest being used to help stablilise the company’s financial position.

“Approximately 70 percent will be used in Starbreeze’s development operations, enabling the Company to focus on continued development of PAYDAY 3 according to plan. The remaining approximately 30 percent will be used to reduce liabilities and bank debt.”

The pandemic came at a bad time for Starbreeze, which has been having financial issues since last year and needed to get Payday 3 out the door and earning asap in 2020. Let’s hope this new line of credit helps the developer bring the game to fruition both critically and commercially.