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Trade Nations dev picks up new funding, former Xbox exec Ed Fries
Here's another iPhone dev hitting the jackpot. Developer Z2Live is the company behind the hit iPhone social game Trade Nations, and it's picked up what's probably a nice chunk of change in a round of funding from VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Unfortunately, the actual total of funding hasn't been disclosed, but given the popularity of the game and its in-app purchase business model, there's likely six digits or more of money changing hands here. It's enough to attract some talent, too -- the company has also picked up Ed Fries to join the board of directors. Fries was originally a Microsoft executive who co-founded the Xbox Project and helped put together Microsoft Games Studios. More recently, he's been working on 3D printing at FigurePrints, a company that makes real-life printouts of in-game avatars. This position sounds like it will overlap with that one, but even so, Z2Live will most likely benefit from the experience.
Rovio picks up $42 million in first funding round
Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, has nabbed a total of $42 million in a first round of venture capitalist funding. This isn't necessarily quite that big a payday for the company -- while that's obviously a lot of money, the company has reportedly already pulled in about $70 million from app sales and the various licensing money it's been making off of those frustrated flyers and their grunty pig counterparts. But what this does mean is that any company looking to buy Rovio will have a tougher time of it, since the Finnish mobile game developer is now worth that much more. Of course, going from what I saw of Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka at last week's GDC conference, I strongly doubt the company wants to be bought anyway. Vesterbacka seems to believe that Angry Birds is more or less vindication for the other fifty games his company made before it, and he's interested in having Rovio ride this franchise for as long as it will carry them. It's possible Rovio could get acquired (if the check gets big enough), but since Vesterbacka believes there's a lot more to do with Angry Birds, my guess is he'll use the money he's already put together to stay his own company.
Digital Chocolate picks up $12 million in funding round, mostly from Intel
Digital Chocolate is one of the biggest iPhone developers that no one talks about much, but maybe that'll change now that the company has picked up a whopping $12 million in venture capital. The company behind a huge amount of iOS titles of all kinds (with more than 100 million mobile downloads total) has raised a total of $54 million so far, and most of this latest round of funding came from Intel, along with a few other venture capital firms. Digital Chocolate seems like a rarity among many App Store developers. While much of the movement on the App Store has been hit-driven, Digital Chocolate instead uses a shotgun approach, delivering lots of different apps that reach their audiences in a variety of different ways. Not all companies can pull a strategy like that off, but whatever Digital Chocolate is doing obviously seems to be working.
Report: Game companies raise record $1.05B in 2010, up 58 percent
VentureBeat estimates game funding by venture capital broke $1.05 billion this year, a 58 percent increase from last. It's also a significant growth from the previously recorded high of $936.8 million in 2008. The video game industry – which is now spread across boxed, digitally distributed, mobile and social (i.e. Facebook) products – has obviously given VC firms plenty of places to gamble, er, strategically invest millions of dollars. Big winners this year (at least, those that revealed investments) were Zynga (Farmville) with $150 million from SoftBank (with, possibly, significantly more from Google). Also, ZeniMax Media (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, id Software), also received $150 million. There were also major investments in Gazillion, OnLive and Playdom. Head on over to VentureBeat to see the millions of dollars going to game companies you'll likely never hear of... ever.
Spacetime announces cross-platform mobile play, prepares to license game engine
Spacetime Studios, the makers of the wildly successful Pocket Legends MMO, has just announced a new influx of funding that will enable continued development on the Spacetime Engine and licensing of said development platform to other game makers beginning in 2011. Gamasutra reports that Spacetime is also claiming an industry first for Pocket Legends in terms of the ability for players on Windows PC, Android, and iOS systems to play on the same shared servers. "Providing players, no matter where they are, with a single deep, seamless 3D MMO gaming experience on multiple devices has been a dream of ours since the company was founded. We feel we're at the forefront of a whole new market for MMO game developers," said Spacetime CEO Gary Gattis.
Kno receives new funding for its humongous dual-screened tablet, still hoping to ship this year
If you need a tablet with presence you need the Kno. Its dual capacitive 14-inch IPS displays, each clocking in at 1,440 x 990, make this thing closer to a Surface than a Courier and surely present some unique challenges when it comes to pricing. Kno, the company, plans to sell it by the end of the year for an MSRP of under $1,000, and a new $46 million injection in financing should go a long way toward making that happen. Kno's primary market is education, offering partnerships with various textbook publishers and functionality that's focused more on research and less on quelling the rage of disgruntled birds. But, will the college kids want to make room in their organic hemp messenger bags for this monster? And, will their parents pay a grand for the thing?
Gaikai up to $15 million in capital with second round of funding
Tired of what we silly game journalists have to say about the upcoming Gaikai game streaming service and thirsting for comments from the venture's latest investment partners? We were too! Thankfully this morning's announcement that several investment groups will be adding another $10 million to the already $5 million-strong coffers at Gaikai brought with it a handful of quotes from just such folks. Rustic Canyon Partners' Nate Redmond sees "interesting new growth opportunities for the industry" in the streaming service, while Benchmark Capital's Mitch Lasky envisions the business as one "poised to take advantage of sweeping changes in how games are bought, sold, and ultimately even played brought about by the industry-wide shift to digital distribution." Unfortunately for us, however none of the investment partners seem to know when Gaikai will become usable by the general public, instead offering word of upcoming announcements about "other strategic industry investments and partnerships soon." We're thinking E3 might be a good time for that. And hey, that's pretty soon!
Nexon iNitiative launching contest for new games
Having a great idea for a video game goes hand-in-hand with playing them, and it goes double for MMOs. (Admit it, you have at least two that you keep locked up tight in your mind on the chance that Blizzard or Turbine or NCsoft come calling. It's okay.) But more often than not, those of us who specialize in playing and talking about making games never get beyond the idea stage. Making these things costs quite a bit of money, after all, and one lone game fan ranting about ideas isn't usually going to attract venture capital. Nexon America wants to make life just a little bit easier for the indie game developers and aspiring developers out there. They've just launched the Nexon iNitiative to bring funding to smaller studios and independent games, with an open contest for submissions. The best idea gets a cool million dollars of invested money, as well as a chance at a Nexon publishing contract. So while it's not quite a private design studio to make your great MMO idea come to fruition, it's a great chance for small developers to get a big leg up. If you think you've got what it takes, check out the submission guidelines and get cracking!
AppFund offers VC money for iPad apps
A group of investors has teamed up to form AppFund, a company solely focused on raising money for and incubating apps for the iPad. You'll remember the somewhat similar iFund, which even got a mention in an Apple keynote a while back, and eventually offered up millions of dollars to emerging iPhone app companies like ngmoco and others. AppFund is trying to do the same thing, though they're starting out a bit smaller, promising $5000 to $500,000 to folks with interesting iPad ideas and the means to get them up and running. They're soliciting ideas right now, so if you saw the iPad on stage and came up with a brilliant way to use it, you can send them a report and see if they bite. You'll probably need a solid business plan and/or a prototype as well, since they probably won't give you $500,000 to develop an iPad whoopie cushion that you can sneak onto a chair and make someone sit on. Or will they? Excuse me, I have go to compose an email...
Game investor consultant says budgets are tightening for VCs
We here at Joystiq have a long history of making unsubstantiated claims about games we're absolutely, 100 percent, without a doubt not making. Unfortunately though, it seems that Joystiq Publishing™ is going to have to close its doors, as Develop's Nick Gibson tells us that fewer and fewer venture capitalists are shelling out dough on fledgling developers these days. More specifically, he says, "in the last four or five months there has been a collapse in venture capital," meaning less money is out there for small developers and publishers -- not to mention new development companies. The problem with this, he argues, is that innovation will be stifled (or at very least slowed) as funding drops out for potentially "risky" games. "There will be considerably fewer start-ups able to pick up the innovation baton and continue to evolve the market," he says. We're hoping that the lack of money forces big publishers to reconsider wasteful spending and instead focus on making the best possible games they can with the resources alotted. We're also hoping for unicorns to land on the moon and find the sattelite's creamy center actually full of an unlimited energy source. So there's that!
Polymer Vision has Readius ready to go, needs cash to push it out the door
A bit of delay is always worrisome, but it looks like Polymer Vision has more to worry about than just missing Readius' projected launch date: without some more cash, the little pocket-friendly e-reader might not launch at all. According the Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick, they've got the supply chain in place, but the product has been on hold since last year due to the company's financial woes. "We are ready to go into production but all depends on exactly when the funding comes through," says Karl. It's not exactly a hot market for venture capital at the moment, especially for something as potentially floptastic as an e-reader, no matter how great that e-reader might happen to be. Still, we would hope that with the device and component supply (supposedly) in the bag, and an arguably revolutionary form factor, Polymer Vision is gonna be able to scrape somebody's coffers for what it takes to get this into our awaiting hands.[Via jkOnTheRun]%Gallery-16071%
All-star team gets funding for Ohai MMO
What do you get when you mix former SOE developers, a Flash-based virtual goods environment and about 6 million dollars in capital funding? You get Ohai, a new project in development from such industry vets as Scott Hartsman, Blake Commagere and Don Neufeld. Last fall, the folks at Ohai raised an undisclosed amount of financing (rumored to be $6 million) from August Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners for their new Flash-based MMO. Very little is known about the game, aside from tidbits here and there. Susan Wu, the company's CEO, recently told Virtual Worlds News that it will be a virtual goods focused business, and they're steering clear of the word "casual", in lieu of the much more appropriate term "accessible". Oh, and they're looking to spend a bit of that cash on some talented artists and programmers.
Big Fish Games snags $83 million for expansion
In what is touted as the the largest investment of venture capital for a U.S. online gaming company, Big Fish Games has recently secured $83.3 million in funding from VC firms Balderton Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Salmon River Capital. This is all in addition to the $8.7 million they received in 2005, making this developer one of the most heavily-funded out there.You may remember in November of last year when Big Fish acquired MMO developer Thinglefin which was founded by Jeremy Friesen and Ryan O'Rourke, formerly of Monolith and Sony Online Entertainment. These industry vets have previously worked on The Matrix Online and Asheron's Call. This new MMO from Thinglefin is described as a free-to-play, browser-based MMO, and is currently still in development.
Whrrl first app to get iFund cash infusion
Kleiner Perkins Claufield & Byers' so-called iFund, the $100 million jackpot being doled out to help support development on the iPhone that was launched in cooperation with Apple back in March, officially has its first pair of recipients. The lucky two are Whrrl -- a social mapping service that allows its users to mark and rate restaurants, entertainment, and events -- and iControl, a home automation app for doing the usual range of light, sound, and appliance control tasks that one might want to do from a handheld device. It really is like winning the lottery, too -- Kleiner claims to have received proposals from over 1,700 companies hoping to get a piece of the iFund pie, but besides these two, the fund has only made an offer to one other project so far. Stingy![Via MacRumors]
Puzzle Pirates creators land a big sack of booty
The Venture Beat site is reporting that Three Rings, the developer of the fantastic Puzzle Pirates and the unique microtransaction title Bang! Howdy!, landed a big chest of gold this past summer. I imagine the gold was given to them in the form of American currency, as the company negotiated for some $3.5 million in venture capital money. The site also notes that the company's unique virtual currency platform is enormously successful, with $4 million in revenue reported by the company for 2007.Though the site's article on the investment is light on what that VC money will be used for, they do briefly discuss Three Rings' work on the Whirled platform: The success of [the virtual currency] model has helped propel the company to 30 employees and is planning its new social networking game world, Whirled, where users will be able to create their own avatars, games, rooms, music, and pets.[Via Next Generation]
IGG receives $4.5 mill in investment capital
Internet Gaming Gate (IGG to its friends), who you may recognize as the company behind such free to play MMOs as Myth War Online, Zu Online, and Tales of Pirates, has announced that they have received a new chunk of funding to the tune of $4.5 million USD from an investment capital firm to expand their operations. Having only launched in 2006, IGG has already put out an impressive number of titles and boasts a user base of over 3.5 million. If we had any doubts about the efficacy of the free MMO business model, this vote of confidence has to quell those doubts at least a little.The funding was provided by IDG Technology Venture Investments, a subsidiary of the International Data Group, a body whose primary goal is to link Silicon Valley to the burgeoning Chinese technology market through the use of venture capital.
Venture capital and online games @ Virtual Worlds Forum
Last week we managed to catch the Venture Capital panel at the Virtual Worlds Forum, an event set inside a nightclub situated within a rather eerie warehouse district behind Kings Cross train station. Plenty of black leather sofas with bloggers and attendees basked in purple lights, a glitter ball, and three bars provide an odd backdrop for discussions about monetizing the latest WoW wannabe. The overall atmosphere of this panel was very businesslike -- £995 a head means most attendees were on their respective company's ticket -- so if you want to continue believing that video games are solely a creative medium designed to further society through creation of fun, look away now.If you're interested in this subject, make sure to check out ex-Joystiq editor Vlad Cole's newly relaunched blog on video game venture capital. Now keep reading.
MobiTV hits the VC jackpot, lands $70 million
Perhaps looking to get a quick hit of cash before the onslaught of competing services gets into full swing, MobiTV has announced a deal with Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital firm, to provide $70 million in exchange for a board seat. No word on what kind of spending spree will ensue, but MobiTV's saying that the cash will "fuel the Company's rapid expansion in response to the overwhelming demand for its mobile television and radio service across international markets." To their credit, the numbers show that these guys are growing pretty rapidly, clocking over a million total subscribers at latest count -- not bad for a company whose domestic carrier partners have launched at least partially competitive services. Having sampled MobiRadio, though, we'll say this much: we hope a few bucks of that VC cash goes toward offering higher-bitrate streams.[Via BusinessWeek]
Gaming startup aims to eliminate lag with $4m
Bigfoot Networks is a startup that's recently obtained $4 million in venture capital funding. Founded by MBA students, the company has a grand ambition--to eliminate lag in online gaming by a vague-sounding "Network Gaming Accelerator" card.The card will be on show at E3, where curious journos can fire piercing questions such as "So what does it actually do?", but until then we'll have to speculate. According to FORTUNE Small Business, the card "communicates with servers, downloading some of the processes that they perform online and allowing them to run faster". However, according to Bigfoot Networks' own white paper on lag, the majority of the bottlenecks involved in lag are client-side and server-side CPU limitations--not network latency.The paper's references to latency spikes and packet loss imply that Bigfoot Network's magic solution to lag might involve creating a dedicated network processor (offloading network-related load from the client CPU), allowing the TCP/IP stack to be specifically tuned for low, consistent latency. However, as Greg Costikyan points out, games are designed to allow for network transmission delays--it might only be a product that appeals to gamers for whom every millisecond counts.[Thanks, Probot]
