Balderton’s investment in Dream Games shows that a VC can return capital without forcing a company into an IPO or sale. For investors facing longer holding periods and sharper LP scrutiny, the practical move is to separate what shareholders need, liquidity, from what the company needs to keep building.
Dream Games also offers a clear lesson at entry: before traction, founder behaviour is operating evidence. Its journey highlights three investor decisions:
Recognise exceptionality before the metrics appear.
Match the buyer to the durability of the business.
Use the terms to return capital without surrendering founder control.
After Balderton received EUVC’s Exit of the Year award for its Dream Games investment, Partner Rob Moffat took the stage to explain both ends of the journey.
At entry, Balderton backed what he recalled as “literally five founders, zero employees, I think 12 slides.” At exit, it sold its stake to CVC while the founders retained control and continued building.
Separate the investor exit from the company exit
By the time liquidity became the question, Dream Games’ founders were not looking for an ending. Rob said they wanted to build a generational company on the scale of DreamWorks or Disney, not sell or list it. They also recognised that they had taken venture money, and that venture money needed to return.
That pressure is becoming harder for GPs to ignore as slower distributions turn realised returns into a fundraising issue. EUVC has explored the implications in Why DPI is now a fundraising problem.
That changed the problem from How do we exit Dream Games? to How do the early investors realise their stakes without forcing the company onto a path its founders do not want?
In 2025, CVC became Dream Games’ sole equity partner, giving the initial venture investors liquidity after more than five years while the company continued expanding the Royal universe.
Investor takeaway: An investor exit and a company exit are different events. Treating them separately expands the set of workable outcomes.
At pre-seed, underwrite behaviour, not adjectives
When Balderton invested in 2019, Dream Games had been operating for about two months. The founders’ shared work at Peak Games offered evidence of experience and team cohesion, but little company-level data.
Even so, Rob said, “We gave them the term sheet within a week and a half.” The $7.5 million round was led by Makers Fund.
The investment case therefore rested on observable behaviour. Rob describes CEO Soner Aydemir as someone who would “analyse every single frame of animation to make it absolutely perfect.” Dream Games also chose depth over breadth: one high-quality, long-lasting game rather than a portfolio of short-lived titles.
Investor takeaway: the evidence changes with stage. At pre-seed, “obsession” matters only when it is visible in how founders allocate time, inspect quality, make trade-offs and work together. Underwrite the behaviour, not the adjective.
Match the buyer to the durability of the revenue
Rob calls the idea that “it’s all about IPOs and nothing else matters” unhelpful when listings are rare, slow and difficult.
Dream Games made the mismatch clear. A company with one mobile game and roughly five years of history was not a straightforward IPO story, while a sale conflicted with the founders’ ambition.
Private equity became plausible because of revenue durability. Traditional games had looked hit-driven to financial buyers. Mobile games, Rob argued, can create “amazing annuity streams” from players who remain engaged and continue spending over many years. That made Dream Games more legible to a long-term financial investor.
The lesson is buyer fit, not that private equity is always better: Which type of capital understands the durability of this company’s economics and can support the founders’ intended horizon?
For a broader view of the liquidity options available to GPs, explore EUVC’s masterclass and playbook on six ways to unlock fund liquidity.
The terms determine whether liquidity actually works
Finding a buyer was only half the work.
According to Rob, the founders did not want a conventional private equity deal in which the new owner “takes the keys”. “It had to be something where the founders still had complete control.” The decisive work therefore moved from valuation to terms.
Governance determined whether liquidity was compatible with continued company building. The structure worked because it solved the investors’ time horizon without replacing the founders’ time horizon.
That is why EUVC’s Exit of the Year focuses on value returned to the venture ecosystem, not only the largest acquisition or most visible listing.
Ask five questions before choosing the exit
Dream Games suggests five questions worth asking before defaulting to an IPO or company sale:
Company ambition: What do the founders still want to build, and which exit routes would prematurely narrow that ambition?
Investor need: Does the company need an exit, or do existing shareholders need liquidity?
Buyer fit: Which buyer understands the persistence and risks in the company’s revenue model?
Control: Which governance and operating rights must remain with the founders for the next chapter to work?
Return design: Can a full or partial secondary return capital without forcing a company-level endpoint?
Balderton’s investment began with conviction before there was much to measure. Its exit required similar flexibility. The common skill was knowing what could change without compromising what made Dream Games exceptional.
Hear how Balderton recognised the team early and returned capital later
From underwriting five founders before traction to returning capital without ending founder control.
