Rovio Entertainment Oyj (formerly Relude Oy and Rovio Mobile Oy and doing business internationally as the Rovio Entertainment Corporation) is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, the company is best known for the Angry Birds franchise. The company currently operates studios in Espoo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Montreal. The company's success has helped to establish Finland as a leading player in the mobile game industry, and has helped to create a thriving ecosystem for game development in the country. History In 2003, three students from the Helsinki University of Technology, Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, participated in a mobile game development competition at the Assembly demo party sponsored by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard. A victory with a mobile game called King of the Cabbage World led the trio to set up their own company, Relude. King of the Cabbage World was sold to Sumea, and renamed to Mole War, which became one of the first commercial real-time multiplayer mobile games. In January 2005, Relude received its first round of investment from a business angel, and the company changed its name to Rovio Mobile, where "rovio" translates from Finnish as "pyre". In 2009, Mikael Hed became the CEO. In December 2009, Rovio released Angry Birds, its 52nd game, a puzzle game where a bird is flung at pigs using a slingshot for the iPhone; it reached No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store paid apps chart after six months, and remained charted for months after. In March 2011, Rovio raised $42 million in venture capital funding from Accel Partners, Atomico and Felicis Ventures. In July 2011, the company changed its name to Rovio Entertainment. In June 2011, the company hired David Maisel to lead their Angry Birds movie production. By October 2011, Rovio purchased Kombo, a Helsinki-based animation company. The animation studio was acquired to produce a series of short videos released in 2012. In March 2012, Rovio acquired Futuremark Game Studios, the game development division of benchmarking company Futuremark, for an undisclosed sum. In May 2012, Rovio announced that its game series Angry Birds had reached its one billionth download. In July 2012, Rovio announced a distribution partnership with Activision to bring the first three Angry Birds titles to video game consoles and handhelds, in a collection named Angry Birds Trilogy.