Startup Exits Podcast with Paul Murphy, founder of Dots
The $200 million sale to Take Two: how Paul started, ran and sold Dots

Paul Murphy
Founder of Dots
Facebook purchased GIPHY for $400 million and Take Two purchased Dots for $200 million –– what do these two acquisitions have in common? Three things: both are 9-figure exits, both happened in 2020 and both were incubated by Paul Murphy. In this episode, we focus on Paul’s experience in incubating and growing Dots, a series of casual and highly addicting mobile games, towards their eventual sale, and Paul's subsequent transition to venture capital.
We chat with Paul about
- Incubating multiple startups at Betaworks
- Can pretty design be a value prop?
- Spending $10k on FB ads in 1 hour by accident
- Attempts at entering the Chinese market
- Moving from being a founder to VC investing
- Would Paul-the-VC invest in Paul-the-founder?
- What if the team is great but the idea is bad?
Paul Murphy is currently an investor at Northzone, an early-stage venture capital firm in London.