In 1998, Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth were running Simis, an in-house development studio owned by Eidos. In the same year, Baverstock and Newth led a management buyout of the studio from Eidos Interactive, forming Kuju Ltd. The name "Kuju" originates from the initials of the founders’ first names: Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth. Jonathan was leafing through a Japanese dictionary when he found the numbers nine and ten – "ku" and "ju" – corresponding to the positions of "I" and "J" in the English alphabet. The combined result was Kuju. Their first game was "Tank Racer", a 3D action racer for PC, PlayStation and mobile.