Increased mobile engine competition sees Perk sell Corona Labs to CEO

Perk, the company that owned engine provider Corona Labs, has sold the business to its own CEO.

Roj Niyogi was appointed CEO of Corona last December following Perk’s acquisition of the firm for $2.3m. He will now step down from his role as President and Board Member at Perk to concentrate solely on Corona, Pocket Gamer reports.

Perk CEO Ted Hastings said in a statement that his company has been investing more than $1m into Corona Labs every quarter. The sale is believed to be Perk’s way of saving on those costs – particularly as Hastings notes that since the acqusition, “the competition for mobile development engines accelerated”.

Niyogi was a co-founder of Perk. He will return all of his stock to the firm as part of this deal and receive $1.75m. Over the next 12 months, Perk will also pay him up to $750,000.

"I'm excited for the next chapter in building Corona and also for the ongoing partnership with Perk," said Niyogi. "It has been an amazing experience from co-founding Perk, taking it public on the TSX, and now focusing on Corona."

Corona Labs is not the only firm to be affected by increased competition in the mobile engines space. Cross-platform development firm Marmalade recently announced it will pull support for its SDK in March 2017 and instead concentrate on games development.