video games founded november 24 2003 ; 12 years ago 2003 11 24 as relude 2005 2005 as rovio mobile 2011 2011 as rovio entertainment founders niklas hed mikael hed kim dikert jarno vakevainen 1 headquarters espoo finland 1 key people kati levoranta ceo teemu suila coo blanca juti cmo products angry birds series toons.tv revenue 142 million 2015 2 net income 26.9 million 2013 3 owner kaj hed 70 % owner 4 number of employees 435 september 2016 3 divisions rovio animation rovio stars rovio lvl11 subsidiaries futuremark games studio website official website rovio entertainment ltd previously known as relude and rovio mobile is a finnish developer publisher distributor of video games and is an entertainment company headquartered in espoo finland . 5 the company was founded in 2003 as a mobile game development studio named relude and was renamed to rovio mobile finnish for pyre in 2005 . 6 the company is best known for creating the angry birds franchise . contents 1 history 2 divisions 2.1 rovio animation 2.2 rovio stars 2.3 rovio lvl11 3 games 3.1 developed by rovio entertainment 3.1.1 no longer available 3.2 developed by rovio lvl11 3.2.1 no longer available 3.3 published by rovio stars 3.3.1 no longer available 3.4 other games developed by rovio 4 television series 5 feature films 6 references 7 external links history edit rovio headquarters is in this office complex in keilaniemi espoo . in 2003 three students from helsinki university of technology currently aalto university school of science niklas hed jarno v kev inen and kim dikert participated in a mobile game development competition at the assembly demo party sponsored by nokia and hp . a victory with a multiplayer game called king of the cabbage world led the trio along with niklas hed s cousin mikael hed to set up their own company relude . king of the cabbage world was sold to sumea now known as sumea studios as part of digital chocolate and renamed to mole war which became one of the first commercial real time multiplayer mobile games . in january 2005 relude received its first round of investment from a business angel and the company changed its name to rovio mobile . 7 in 2009 mikael hed became the ceo . in december 2009 rovio released angry birds its 52nd game a puzzle game where a bird is flung using a slingshot for the iphone ; it reached no. 1 spot in the apple app store paid apps chart after six months and remained charted for months after . 8 angry birds has since been downloaded over 1 billion times 9 with paid downloads accounting for more than 25 % of total downloads making it one of the top selling games in the apple app store . in march 2011 rovio raised 42 million in venture capital funding from accel partners atomico and felicis ventures . 10 in july 2011 the company changed its name to rovio entertainment ltd. 11 in june 2011 the company hired david maisel to lead their angry bird movie production . 12 by october 2011 rovio purchased kombo a helsinki based animation company . 13 the animation studio was acquired to produce a series of short videos released in 2012 . 14 in march 2012 rovio acquired futuremark game studios the game development division of benchmarking company futuremark for an undisclosed sum . 15 in may 2012 rovio announced that its game series angry birds had reached its one billionth download . in july 2012 rovio announced a distribution partnership with activision to bring the first three angry birds titles to video game consoles and handhelds in a collection named angry birds trilogy . the title was released in september 2012 . in november 2012 rovio released angry birds star wars an iteration of its popular game licensed from the star wars original trilogy for mobile devices and pc . 16 rovio partnered with activision again to port the title to video game consoles and handhelds with it being released on those platforms in october 2013 . a sequel angry birds star wars ii based on the star wars prequel trilogy was released in september 2013 . toonstv logo in march 2013 rovio launched its multi platform toonstv channel starting with angry birds toons . 17 as of 2013 rovio became a video game publisher and is publishing third party games through their rovio stars program . 18 in january 2014 rovio announced that its game series angry birds had reached its two billionth download . 19 in addition it was revealed that their flagship series angry birds leaked data to third party companies possibly to surveillance agencies like the nsa . 20 in retaliation anti nsa hackers defaced rovio s website . 21 in may 2014 rovio launched a new publishing arm rovio lvl11 to release experimental games . 22 the first game published under rovio lvl11 is retry 23 and the second is selfie slam . 24 as of june 2014 rovio considers themselves an entertainment company not just a game company . this is reinforced by rovio s merchandise and licensing business accounting for about half of their annual revenue of 216 million in 2013 . 25 in august 2014 rovio announced that mikael hed would step down as ceo in january 2015 in favor of pekka rantala . 26 hed remained on rovio s board and became the chairman of rovio animation . in december 2014 rovio laid off 110 employees after net profits halved in 2013 due to its recent games angry birds epic and go which have not been that successful as past games . 27 after this move rovio closed its tampere studio moving those operations to its espoo location . at the end of 2014 rovio suffered from a 73 % decrease in profit earning only 10 million . pekka rantala stated that the decrease is due to the poor sales of the licensed merchandise and the by products of angry birds . he also noted that the company are unsatisfied over the result of our licensing business . 28 in august 2015 rovio laid off 260 employees worldwide after angry birds toy and merchandise revenue fell by 43 % during 2014 . 29 in december 2015 rantala announced that he will step down as the ceo and will be succeeded by kati levoranta former chief legal officer of rovio in january 2016 . 30 divisions edit rovio animation edit see also toons.tv rovio animation produces content for multiplatform channel toonstv which is owned by rovio . it is available in most of the rovio apps video on demand providers smart tvs and other connected devices . 17 as of december 2014 its content was viewed more than four billion times . 31 on 16 march 2013 toonstv was launched by rovio starting with angry birds toons . 17 it was followed by a bad piggies based animated series piggy tales which premiered on 11 april 2014 . 32 the second season of angry birds toons debuted on 19 october 2014 33 and an stella animated series based on angry birds stella came out on 1 november 2014 . 34 piggy tales pigs at work debuted on 17 april 2015 . toonstv also streams a third party content including graphic india pow stan lee s chakra the invincible series at least four shows from xilam animation national geographic kids amazing animals jim henson s classic show fraggle rock and works from hasbro studios . 17 in june 2015 rovio announced that the angry birds youtube channel had reached over two billion views . 35 in july 2015 rovio teamed up with nasa to create the rocket science show which features 15 episodes about the solar system as described by nasa experts . 36 rovio stars edit as of 2013 rovio became a video game publisher and is publishing third party games through their rovio stars program . in this program rovio helps other game studios develop their game and then helps to distribute the game . the rovio stars games are tiny thief plunder pirates and sky punks . icebreaker a viking voyage juice cubes word monsters and jolly jam were originally games from rovio stars . icebreaker a viking voyage was moved to nitrome 37 juice cubes was moved to pocket playlab word monsters was moved to raketspel and jolly jam was removed from the app stores . rovio lvl11 edit rovio released experimental games under their rovio lvl11 publishing arm . the rovio lvl11 games were retry and selfie slam . retry was released worldwide in october 2014 . 38 it was later removed from the app store in 2016 . in selfie slam the player takes a selfie and adds limbs to make an avatar then uses the avatar to play a selection of mini games ; it was soft launched in september 2014 for ios in selected regions . 24 in december 2015 rovio posted on a support page that development on selfie slam has been discontinued and that the worldwide release was cancelled . 39 games edit developed by rovio entertainment edit year title platform s android ios pc wp 2009 angry birds yes yes yes yes 2010 angry birds seasons yes yes yes yes 2011 angry birds rio yes yes yes yes 2012 angry birds space yes yes yes yes 2012 bad piggies yes yes yes yes 2012 angry birds star wars yes yes yes yes 2013 angry birds friends yes yes yes no 2013 angry birds star wars ii yes yes yes yes 2013 angry birds go yes yes no yes 2014 angry birds epic yes yes no yes 2014 angry birds stella yes yes no yes 2014 angry birds transformers yes yes no no 2015 angry birds pop yes yes yes no 2015 angry birds fight yes yes no no 2015 angry birds 2 yes yes no no 2015 nibblers yes yes no no 2015 love rocks yes yes no no 2016 angry birds action yes yes no no no longer available edit year title platform s android ios pc wp 2012 amazing alex yes yes no yes 2013 the croods yes yes no no developed by rovio lvl11 edit no longer available edit year title platform s android ios pc wp 2014 retry yes yes no no 2014 selfie slam no yes no no published by rovio stars edit year title platform s android ios pc wp 2013 tiny thief yes yes yes yes 2014 plunder pirates yes yes no no 2015 sky punks yes yes no no no longer available edit year title platform s android ios pc wp 2013 icebreaker a viking voyage yes yes no no 2013 juice cubes yes yes yes no 2014 word monsters yes yes no no 2015 jolly jam yes yes no no other games developed by rovio edit rovio developed 51 games which were a combination of work for hire projects published games and independently released titles before the success of the original angry birds . here is a selection of these games 40 41 bounce evolution nokia n900 2009 bounce tales java me 2008 bounce touch java me 2008 bounce boing voyage n gage 2008 burger rush java me 2008 burnout java me 2007 collapse chaos java me 2008 cyber blood java me 2006 darkest fear java me 2005 ios 2009 darkest fear 2 grim oak java me 2006 darkest fear 3 nightmare java me 2006 desert sniper java me 2006 dragon & jade java me 2007 formula gp racing java me 2005 gem drop deluxe java me 2008 marine sniper java me 2007 mole war java me 2004 need for speed carbon java me 2006 paid to kill java me 2004 paper planes java me 2008 patron angel java me 2007 playman winter games java me 2005 shopping madness java me 2007 space impact meteor shield nokia n97 2010 star marine java me 2007 sumea ski jump java me 2007