In 2017, three friends set out, in their words, to build “the Apollo program of mobile gaming”. Ex-Israeli military intelligence officer, Lior Shiff had already built and sold one games company, Product Madness. He teamed up with Akin Babayigit, a Turkish-born ex-Facebook executive, and Eyal Chameides, also of the Product Madness founding team, to create Tripledot Studios.

Today, the trio have taken turns leading different parts of the business but the company they built together has become one of the largest mobile games studios in the world. Tripledot’s games, such as Woodoku, Solitaire.com and Triple Tile, reportedly reach 25 million people around the world every day. Tripledot operates 12 studio brands across 23 cities globally, has more than 2,500 team members and generates approximately $2bn in gross revenue annually.

Where many studios chase original concepts, Tripledot deliberately built its games in crowded, proven categories, such as solitaire and puzzle, betting that its edge lay in data and execution rather than invention. That data-driven approach, claims the company, made it profitable from its second year of operation – a rare feat in an industry known for burning cash.

In June 2025, it completed an $800m, half-cash, half-equity acquisition of AppLovin’s entire mobile games portfolio, ten studios and their titles, taking on AppLovin as a minority shareholder. Shiff said the deal “would unlock” the possibility of a future IPO.