Grounds Up: Business Tycoon

Start with one café. Grow into hotels, an AI lab and a fund, then win board seats and take over rivals. No ads. No in-app purchases. Works offline.

Grounds Up is a single-player business tycoon game for iPhone. You open your first small café on a busy street. Each week you set prices, pay your people, pick your coffee and read the results. Then the company grows far beyond coffee: more cafés in more cities, hotels, an AI lab and a fund of your own.

Time moves only when you tap the date, one week at a time. There is no timer and no game over. Everything in the game is made up: the companies, the people, the banks and the money. It is a game, not a financial service, and nothing in it is financial advice.

A GROUP THAT KEEPS GROWING • Build cafés in eight cities: Osaka, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin and São Paulo. • Choose the look, the machines, the menu and the prices of every café, and hire managers to run them. • Open hotels. Pick the class, the rooms and the rates, and read the guest reviews. • Start an AI lab and grow it through research, products and funding rounds. • Run a fund with outside investors and a record that sets the size of the next one. • Lease offices, buy property, and buy and name landmarks.

STAKES, BOARDS AND VOTES • Buy shares in listed companies and back startups through their funding rounds. • Build a stake big enough for a seat on the board, then more seats, then the chair. • Sit in board meetings. Read the facts, weigh the options and vote, or let your seats vote for you. • Win control of a company and merge it into your group.

RIVALS AND RECORDS • 300 rival tycoons grow their own fortunes while you build yours. • Climb the rich list and chase records, from your first billion up. • Play Relaxed, Normal, Hard or Tycoon, with up to five rival companies.

PAY ONCE, NOTHING ELSE TO BUY • One payment on the App Store. • No ads. No in-app purchases. No subscription. • Works offline. The game never needs the internet. • No account. No tracking. Keep up to ten games on your phone.

All companies, people and money in the game are made up. Nothing here is financial advice.