HQ Trivia boss Colin Kroll is dead at 35 after an apparent overdose

Colin Kroll, the 35-year-old CEO and co-founder of mobile game sensation HQ Trivia, was found dead after an apparent drug overdose on Saturday night.

An NYPD official confirmed to The Daily Beast that authorities found Kroll in his bed, unconscious and unresponsive, shortly before midnight on Saturday. Police were there to perform a welfare check, though it's not clear who alerted them or when.

The unnamed official who confirmed the news -- which was first reported by TMZ -- also noted that narcotics and drug paraphernalia were found in Kroll's apartment, and that the death is being investigated as a narcotics overdose.

Kroll was best known in recent years for the part he playing in building HQ Trivia, a free-to-play mobile trivia game in which all participants have a chance at winning cash prizes. The game's popularity peaked in 2017, though it's still around today and still trying out new ideas on its sizable audience.

Previously, Kroll and his HQbusiness partner Rus Yusupov made a name for themselves in tech as the founders of Vine. Twitter acquired the short-form video hosting service in 2012, only a few months after it launched, and it became a go-to source of memes and other examples of viral internet until Twitter shut it down in late 2016.

Yusupov expressed his sadness at the death of his friend and business partner in a Sunday afternoon tweet.

Tweet may have been deleted

HQhost Scott Rogowsky also paid tribute to Kroll.

Tweet may have been deleted

UPDATE: Dec. 17, 2018, 11:53 a.m. AEDT Added tweet from Scott Rogowsky.