Istanbul Startup Secures $30M After Founders Quit Jobs

For Irem Sumer, the first week of October marked a collision of professional ambition and personal joy. On October 3, the CEO and cofounder of Talemonster Games signed a term sheet securing $30 million in Series A funding. Less than 24 hours later, she was signing her marriage license.

"It was the most chaotic two weeks of my life," Sumer remarked, noting that she eventually delegated wedding planning to her fiancé to focus on the company. This whirlwind period capped off two years of intense development for the Istanbul-based startup and its flagship title, Match Valley. The funding round was led by Arcadia Gaming Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Point72 Ventures and General Catalyst.

The road to this Series A began with a collective career pivot. Sumer, a civil engineer by training who previously worked at Pfizer and Google, met her future cofounders at Peak Games. United by a passion for gaming, the five-member team resigned within the same week to launch Talemonster Games.

"I wanted to be in tech, and gaming was my passion, but I never thought that I could make money from it," Sumer admitted. The team committed 100% of their time to the venture, diving into market research by playing "hundreds of games" and subsequently pulling 18-hour shifts to build their prototype. After three months of ideation, they developed the core concept for Match Valley.

The game blends standard puzzle mechanics—similar to Candy Crush—with tower defense strategies and a roster of hero characters possessing unique abilities. Following a seed round of $7 million in February, the team launched a stable version with 200 levels in August.

The initial launch brought an unexpected challenge: the players were too efficient. "People consumed all our content in 10 days, and then they turned away from the game," Sumer explained. The team was forced to halt other operations to rapidly design new levels and expand the staff.

Despite the content crunch, the game's performance metrics proved irresistible to investors. Match Valley boasts a core audience that is female-dominant, yet highly engaged.

"The game's core audience is still female dominant, but they are spending one and a half hours on average per player in the game."

Sumer noted that players spent an average of 2.5 hours on their first day in-game. The company monetizes through an in-app purchase model. These strong retention numbers helped convince investors that the startup was worth the capital injection, despite Sumer's initial belief that it was "a bit too early" to fundraise.

Securing backing from a giant like Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) often requires warm introductions, but Sumer took a more direct route. She reached out to investor Josh Lu at A16z Speedrun via a cold message on LinkedIn.

After seeing a post by Lu stating he was looking for interesting games, Sumer slid into his DMs. "I thought, he's basically describing our prototype, that can't be a coincidence," she said. "So we reached out to him with a cold text, and he just fell in love with the prototype."

Lu later praised the team for their refusal to take "the easy route," highlighting their culture of challenging industry norms. The team has since grown from the original five cofounders to a remote team of 32 people spanning engineering, art, product management, and marketing.

With the $30 million secured, Sumer plans to expand Match Valley and develop a new game slated for release this year. However, she remains cautious about scaling too quickly. "I don't plan to hire too many people," she stated, preferring "lean, high-responsibility teams."

Sumer offers three key pieces of advice for aspiring gaming entrepreneurs:

• Be Brave: When starting from scratch, you have nothing to lose.
• Choose Wisely: Ensure your team, culture, and investors share your vision.
• Celebrate Wins: Take time to acknowledge achievements amidst the daily grind.

She emphasizes that finding the right partners often involves a "painful process" of saying "lots of nos," but it is essential for long-term alignment.

Talemonster Games represents a new wave of mobile gaming startups that prioritize deep engagement metrics over sheer volume. By combining familiar mechanics with unique hero elements, they have carved out a dedicated niche in a crowded market.

As the company looks toward the release of their second title, the focus remains on maintaining that "lean" culture while managing the expectations that come with a Series A valuation. The journey from a shared office in Istanbul to a multi-million dollar enterprise serves as a blueprint for modern bootstrapping success.