Simon Hade and Olly Barnes Found NextBeat Backed by Supercell

Following Supercell's full acquisition of Space Ape Games, former managers Simon Hade and Olly Barnes have launched a new company, NextBeat, taking the music-focused games Beatstar and Country Star with them. NextBeat aims to open up new revenue channels for the music industry through apps and games, with Supercell as a minority shareholder.

It remains unclear why Supercell chose not to expand these platforms itself. Beatstar and Country Star were part of the portfolio of Space Ape Games, a UK-based studio in which Supercell held a stake for years before acquiring it outright in November. Media reports suggested that Supercell's primary goal with the acquisition was to establish a presence in the UK’s robust game development community and tap into its talent pool. However, it was not apparent at the time that Supercell would part with at least some Space Ape Games' brands.

The details were revealed in a press release from Simon Hade and Olly Barnes regarding the founding of NextBeat. Joe Adams, who is listed as co-founder and CFO on LinkedIn, is also part of the new venture. Hade was a co-founder of Space Ape Games, Barnes previously co-founded Voisey and served as an advisor to Space Ape Games for many years, and Adams, who most recently worked as CFO of Kepler Interactive, was Finance Director and CFO at Space Ape Games from 2015 to 2018.

According to NextBeat, Hade and Barnes successfully carved out the music platforms Beatstar and Country Star during the Space Ape acquisition. While Supercell remains an active minority shareholder, NextBeat reports that it also secured “substantial external investment.”

Beatstar has reportedly been downloaded over 100 million times and is expected to surpass $200 million in lifetime revenue during the year, according to NextBeat.

The company’s vision is to create "non-streaming monetization" opportunities for the music industry. This includes plans to develop and market additional music genre-specific apps and games to expand its offerings further.

"Beatstar taught us that there is huge per-user monetization potential for music in gaming, far surpassing streaming service subscriptions. The vast mobile gaming audience and ARPU insights from Country Star's genre-focused approach underscored the need to launch a fully resourced company dedicated to this opportunity," Olly Barnes says. And Simon Hade adds: "I look forward to building on the momentum of the talented Space Ape team, as NextBeat, to expand into more experiences, games and apps that showcase the inspiration and creativity of our artist partners.  Addressing this immense opportunity, now, with a dedicated music-focused venture rather than a traditional mobile gaming studio approach, makes this partnership an exciting step forward for all concerned, and I'm thrilled that the team at Supercell shared our ambitious vision."