AONIC

How Swedish group Aonic is growing an ambitious stable of studios – and doing things differently from Embracer

The layoffs of recent years may be felt right across the game industry, but it’s hard not to point the finger at Embracer Group for doing an outsized amount of damage in closing so many studios. In parallel with its overexpansion, though, is Aonic, a gaming group that, while also having origins in Sweden and emerging from seemingly nowhere to go on an acquisition spree, is taking another path.

Founded in 2021, Aonic now owns 12 companies, including VR specialist nDreams and Otherside Entertainment, the studio behind Warren Spector’s Thick As Thieves, and has continued to increase its capital, including raising “We wanted €152m in December. These numbers may seem modest compared to Embracer’s, but that is also the point, since Aonic’s strategy is more focused on investing in small and medium-sized studios.

“Embracer bought great companies,” Aonic co-founder Olliver Heins says, “but companies on peak, with thousands of employees, where it’s hard to make something better, and all they could do was optimise by downsizing.” With the exception of the aforementioned studios with profile, Aonic’s acquisitions have flown under the radar, partly to prevent a hike in target prices but also because it has been selective with the studios it wants in its mission to address a gap in the market.