Today, financial investors Emona Capital LLC revealed that is has officially completed its buyout of the hit UK publisher, Secret Mode, from The Sumo Group.
Despite the buyout, Emona Capital has stated that the current leadership of Ed Blincoe and James Schall will stay the same for Secret Mode and that they’ll continue to operate as an independent publisher focused on supporting indie PC and console games. When commenting on the buyout, Emona Capital partners Dominik Dolenec and Michael Moriarty talked about how excited they were about the partnership:
Secret Mode has made great waves in its formative years as a publisher of independent games,” said Dolenec. “We look forward to supporting Secret Mode’s mission within the independent games sector across PC and consoles.”
We are excited to build upon our commitment in the gaming ecosystem by investing in Secret Mode,” Moriarty continued. “This partnership strengthens our portfolio and adds skills and experience that complement our existing studios.”
Emona Captial has a history working with world-renowned PC and console developers within the video game industry, including studios like Relic Entertainment and Amber Studio. Its partnership with Secret Mode will be the first such investment into the publishing side of the ecosystem, as they hope to continue to broaden their investments with other publishers in the future.
Since being founded in 2020 as a part of Sumo, Secret Mode has worked with numerous hit indie games, including Still Wakes the Deep, A Little to the Left, Wobbledogs, and Eternal Threads. In 2024, they were awarded both the UKIE Best UK Publisher Award and the Best Influencer Marketing Award at last month’s Debug Indie Game Awards.
Currently, they are publishing a story-rich RPG, Empyreal, and a space simulation title, Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life, though no exact release date has been set for either. For more information on these upcoming titles, as well as their past works, you can head on over to their official website.
