The mobile quiz app HQ Trivia is coming back Sunday night thanks to an anonymous investor who provided the funding it needed to resume operations, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A push notification alerted people with the app on their devices that it would return at its usual time of 9 p.m. ET. Financial details of the potential deal couldn’t be determined.
HQ Trivia, which launched in 2017, abruptly shut down in February and laid off roughly 25 workers after struggling for months with rising costs and declining viewership. Rus Yusupov, co-founder of HQ Trivia, said a few days later on Twitter the show could soon return in a “new home,” but that didn’t happen until now.
Last week, the game’s Twitter feed posted an ellipsis, possibly a hint to fans that a comeback was pending, in its first tweet since Feb. 22.
HQ Trivia grew quickly in popularity by persuading mobile users to log in at specific times twice a day for a chance to win cash prizes. At one point, HQ Trivia was drawing millions of players daily, with each episode offering 15 minutes of multiple-choice questions covering a range of topics. Technical glitches and challenges in raising funds to cover the game’s large prize pools eroded its popularity over time, as well as the 2018 death of HQ Trivia co-founder Colin Kroll.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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