EIDOS, the troubled computer games company behind Tomb Raider and Hitman, last night agreed to a £71 million takeover bid from Elevation Partners, a Californian venture capital group that counts Bono, frontman of the rock group U2, among its partners.

Elevation, whose name is derived from a U2 song, made a 50p-a-share bid for Eidos, apparently ending the games company’s eight-month quest for a buyer during which it lurched from one profits warning to the next. Eidos shares closed 5½p higher at 44¾p.

Elevation is led by John Riccitiello, former president and chief operating officer of Electronic Arts in the US, the world’s largest computer games company. He said the offer was “in the best interests of Eidos shareholders, employees and customers”.

Mike McGarvey, Eidos’s chief executive, said: “The board’s view is that it would be hard to find people with more expertise to take the company forward.

“Eidos is just not big enough to be a public company. We ran into a vicious circle where the timing of one title is the difference between a good result and a profit warning.”

Eidos, which has issued five profits warnings in the past two years, put itself up for sale eight months ago. “There’s been a lot of frustration with us, but it’s important for us to find a home for the company where it will have the opportunity to find scale,” Mr McGarvey said. Elevation is expected to seek other acquisitions in the games industry.

But the Silicon Valley venture capitalists are not the only bidders to have shown interest in Eidos, and are not thought to be the mystery party that Eidos said earlier this month had made an approach. Last week it emerged that Francisco Partners, a private equity group, was also casting an eye over Eidos.

“It may not yet be over, in this game when somebody is suddenly in play then people get interested again,” said one close observer of the company.