tinyBuild

tinyBuild is an American publisher and developer of indie video games, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, and listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market under the ticker TBLD. It publishes and co-develops games from independent studios worldwide and operates several in-house development studios. Its best-known property is the stealth-horror franchise Hello Neighbor, alongside titles such as No Time To Explain, SpeedRunners, Party Hard, Punch Club, ClusterTruck, The Final Station, Graveyard Keeper, Guts and Glory, Pandemic Express and Despot's Game.

The business began as a development partnership around a single game and evolved into a publishing label after the 2013 Steam release of SpeedRunners, providing partner developers with funding, production help, porting, artwork and marketing. After Hello Neighbor became a viral success, the company extended its franchises into merchandising, books and spin-off titles, and articulated a strategy focused on horror games, innovative gameplay and games derived from popular community mods. From 2020 it pursued an acquisition-led expansion, buying or founding more than a dozen studios and acquiring the intellectual property of Bossa Studios' catalogue.

Since 2023 the company has been restructuring: it reported underperformance in its H1 2023 results, closed studios, laid off staff, divested two subsidiaries and halted further M&A. In December 2023 it announced a conditional US$14 million equity raise with participation from Atari and existing shareholders, warning that failure to complete the raise could result in Chapter 11 or another insolvency procedure. Reported headcount is approximately 200 in 2025 per Wikipedia and approximately 100 per the company's own website.

Founding story

In early 2011, while marketing web games at Spil Games in the Netherlands, Alex Nichiporchik came across a small joke game called No Time To Explain by developer Tom Brien and believed it could be turned into a full Steam release comparable to Super Meat Boy. The two formed a partnership named tinyBuild GAMES and ran a Kickstarter campaign that hit its funding goal within hours, raising over US$26,000 against a US$7,000 target. Nichiporchik, originally from Latvia, had been a professional Warcraft III player before moving into games journalism, production and marketing.

Business model

tinyBuild funds, produces and publishes games made by third-party independent developers and by its own internal studios, providing funding, production, porting, artwork, marketing and go-to-market support in exchange for participation in the games. From the success of Hello Neighbor it extended into franchise and brand building, including merchandising, books and other media formats around its game IP. Following weak 2023 results it stated it would move away from third-party publishing and focus more on games based on its own intellectual property.

Revenue derives from sales of games it develops and publishes across PC and console storefronts, publishing arrangements with third-party developers, platform deals, and franchise extensions such as merchandising and books.

Traction

Hello Neighbor became a viral success and spawned a prequel, a multiplayer spin-off, merchandise and books, with the company investing more than US$15 million into the franchise. tinyBuild had 27 employees in early 2019, about 150 by March 2020, and its website cites over 90 published titles and roughly 100 employees in 2025, while Wikipedia lists about 200 employees for 2025.

Latest developments

In June 2023 tinyBuild reported underperformance in its H1 2023 results, attributing it to lower platform-deal revenue and shortfalls at subsidiaries Versus Evil and Red Cerberus, and shares fell 78.8%. On 21 December 2023 it announced a conditional US$14 million fundraise, with Atari subscribing for around US$2 million and existing shareholders for US$2.16 million; in January 2024 the board urged shareholders to approve the raise at a 16 January special meeting, warning that failure would likely lead to Chapter 11 or another insolvency procedure. Swedbank disclosed in January 2024 that it had cut its stake below 5% and then 3% in October 2023. Shareholders listed for 2025 include Alex Nichiporchik (57.9%), Atari SA (7.9%) and NetEase (3.2%).