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Corona Labs Inc.

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Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Corona Labs Inc., available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 8 August 202512 sources
Corona Labs Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustrySoftware development
Founded2008; 18 years ago (2008)
FounderCarlos Icaza, Walter Luh
DefunctMay 1, 2020 (2020-05-01)
Headquarters
Palo Alto
,
United States
ProductsCorona SDK (later Solar2D), Corona Enterprise, Corona Cloud

Corona Labs Inc., originally known as Ansca Mobile, was a software firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California, recognized for its 2D game and application development platform.[1][2] Its primary offering, Corona SDK, functioned as a cross-platform mobile development tool that allowed the creation of native applications for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle, Windows Phone, tvOS, Android TV, as well as desktop environments including Mac and Windows using a single codebase.[2][3] The suite of Corona products was built on the programming language Lua.[4][5] The company underwent several ownership changes before ceasing operations on May 1, 2020.[1]

History

Established in 2008 under the name Ansca Mobile, Corona Labs was co-founded by Carlos Icaza—who had previously spearheaded initiatives such as Macromedia's Flash Lite and Adobe Illustrator—and Walter Luh, the principal architect behind Flash Lite.[1][4][3] The term "Ansca" was derived from Icaza’s upbringing in Nicaragua within the Algodoneros Nicaragüenses Sociedad Cooperativa Agrícola (ANSCA).[4] In September 2009, the startup secured $1 million in Series A financing from Merus Capital, a venture capital firm.[4]

By December of that year, Ansca launched the inaugural version of Corona SDK, which powered titles such as The Lost City, Bubble Ball created by then-14-year-old Robert Nay, and Dabble developed by 84-year-old George Weiss.[5][4][1] Initially supporting only iOS, Corona SDK rapidly extended compatibility to Android devices, followed by Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name

By 2012, the company had expanded its team to 15 employees.[4] In April of that year, Icaza departed and Walter Luh assumed the role of CEO; two months later, Ansca rebranded itself as Corona Labs.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name That August, after securing an additional $2 million in funding, Corona introduced Corona Enterprise, a product that allowed developers to incorporate native Objective-C and Java libraries.[6] Later that year in December, Corona acquired Dubai-based Game Minion to bolster its cloud service offerings.[7] This acquisition paved the way for the 2015 release of Corona Cloud, which provided developers with features such as leaderboards and chat functionality tailored for mobile gaming.[7][8][3] In April 2013, Corona launched SDK Starter—a free tier offering limited tools beneath the paid SDK Pro and Enterprise editions.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name

In late 2014, Toronto’s Fuse Powered—a mobile monetization company—acquired Corona Labs.[9][10][1] This move corresponded with broader consolidation trends within the industry, including Unity Technologies’ acquisitions and the formation of Upsight.[9] Walter Luh highlighted Fuse’s capabilities in enhancing Corona’s monetization and publishing tools. By this point, more than 300,000 developers worldwide were utilizing Corona SDK.[2]

In December 2015, Perk.com—a rewards platform—purchased Corona Labs for $2.3 million.[3][10][1] Subsequently, in September 2016, Perk co-founder Roj Niyogi acquired Corona Labs through a combination of Perk shares and cash totaling up to $2.45 million.[11][1] During this time frame, Corona Ads was phased out and replaced by a subscription-based offering called the Corona Professional Bundle for monetization plugins.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name

Ownership changed hands again in March 2017 when Appodeal, an advertisement management company, acquired Corona Labs.[1] By June of that year, the entire Corona framework was made available free of charge and all related products were unified under the "Corona" brand.[6] In 2019, the game engine transitioned to an open-source model.[12] February 2020 saw the announcement that the company would shut down effective May 1; at that time remaining products were released under an open-source license.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name In April 2020, the engine formerly known as Corona SDK was renamed to Solar2D.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named crunch
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named wire
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named austin
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named icaza
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named chaykowski
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named ramel
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named pocket
  8. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named etherington
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named takahashi
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named harris
  11. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named niyogi
  12. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named chapple

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