A promising year for venture capital investments in the country, four Brazilian startups have reached the coveted status of unicorns in 2019 – and now the fifth arrives to join the club. Wildlife Studios, founded by engineers and brothers Arthur and Victor Lazarte, received an investment round of $60 million led by the San Francisco based VC fund Benchmark Capital – reaching a valuation of $1.3 billion.

UPDATE ON AUGUST 12, 2020: Brazilian game startup Wildlife is worth $3 billion after new investment

Focused on producing games for mobile platforms, Wildlife Studios was created in 2011 and currently is close to reaching the milestone of two billion downloads, expected to happen by the end of this year. Among its nearly 70 productions are games such as the hit Tennis Clash. 

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Backed by Benchmark Capital – also an investor of names in the likes of Instagram and Snapchat – Wildlife is counting on other big names that have also joined this latest round: Javier Olivan, Facebook executive; Red Ventures cofounder and CEO Ric Elias; Ribbit Capital’s partner Micky Malka; Divesh Makan, ICONIQ Capital‘s partner; and Hugo Barra, Virtual Reality VP of Facebook. 

With 500 employees, Wildlife has offices spread across Argentina, Ireland, Brazil, and the United States. As for the plans, now that the company has reached the unicorn status, the goal is to keep growing at 80% yearly – an impressive mark that Wildlife has been maintaining for the last six years. Increase new and qualified hirings, as well as enhance the quality of the games, and help other smaller studios to launch games in the market are also on the company’s horizon.