Report: Zynga worth $7-9 billion
The Wall Street Journal says that, with its $250 million in new funding, social gaming company Zynga could be worth as much as $7 to 9 billion -- that's "billion" with a B. An astounding number for the company behind the extraordinarily popular Facebook game Farmville. Zynga has a number of interests in the iOS space, including a Farmville app as well as the recent purchases of iPhone developers Newtoy and the studio behind Drop7.
Of course, that number is only an estimate of the company's value, not actual money it's earned. But investors do expect the company to go public within the next few years, and given that Farmville has attracted an audience (and appears to have nailed down a way to make a significant amount of money from an all-new gaming audience), there's no question that Zynga is a huge relatively new force in the gaming space.
Zynga is likely not done growing -- the company has picked up one developer per month over the past nine months, and I'll bet that we haven't heard of the last iPhone developer being acquired by them just yet. The iOS platform isn't the only reason for Zynga's huge valuation, but it certainly seems destined to play a part in its future.
[via Mashable]
