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Quick link: List of $350MM of VC investments in social gaming, virtual worlds, casual MMOs, etc
Wow, there has been a ton of investment into games-related startups.
I hadn’t seen this table until today – I thought I’d share it. It shows the tremendous amount of investment that’s been thrown into the “new” games space, although I’ll note that some of the companies on this list are relatively mature. But lots of them were funded in the last year or so. Given that there are still tons of stealth companies out there, I bet that a comprehensive list would be >2x as large.
Read more about this on Jussi’s excellent games blog:
| Date | Company | Invested | Type | Series | Country | Lead investor |
| Sep-08 | Challenge Games |
$10,0
|
Social games | Series B | USA | Globespan Capital Partners |
| Sep-08 | Big Fish Games |
$83,0
|
Casual games | Series A | USA | Balderton Capital |
| Sep-08 | Hollywood Interactive |
$5,0
|
Social games | Unknown | USA | BlueRun Ventures |
| Sep-08 | RobotGalaxy |
$5,0
|
Virtual World | Series B | USA | Bachmann Industries |
| Aug-08 | Nonoba |
1,3 €
|
Casual games | Series A | DK | Mangrove Capital Partners |
| Aug-08 | LOLapps |
$4,5
|
Social apps | Series A | USA | Polaris Venture Partners |
| Aug-08 | Webcarrz |
$4,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Meakem Becker Venture Capital |
| Aug-08 | Knowledge Adventure |
$5,0
|
Virtual World | Unknown | USA | Azure Capital Partners |
| Aug-08 | Dizzywood |
$1,0
|
Virtual World | Series B | USA | European Founders Fund |
| Jul-08 | Challenge Games |
$4,5
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Sequoia Capital |
| Jul-08 | Zynga |
$29,0
|
Social games | Series B | USA | Kleiner Perkins |
| Jul-08 | Playfish |
$1,0
|
Social games | Bridge | UK | Accel Partners |
| Jul-08 | Gaia Interactive |
$11,0
|
Casual MMO | Series C | USA | Institutional Venture Partners |
| Jul-08 | Six Degrees Games |
$7,0
|
Virtual World | Series A | USA | Prism VentureWorks& Clearstone |
| Jul-08 | Social Gaming Network |
$3,0
|
Social games | Unknown | USA | Jeff Bezos Expeditions |
| Jul-08 | Riot Games |
$7,0
|
Casual games | Unknown | USA | Benchmark Capital |
| Jul-08 | 8D World |
$1,0
|
Casual MMO | Series A | USA | Spark Capital |
| Jun-08 | I’m in like with you |
$1,5
|
Social games | Series B | USA | Spark Capital |
| May-08 | Social Gaming Network |
$15,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Greylock Partners |
| Apr-08 | Serious Business Inc |
$4,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Lightspeed Ventures |
| Apr-08 | Kongregate |
$3,0
|
Casual games | Series B | USA | Jeff Bezos Expeditions |
| Apr-08 | Akoha |
$2,0
|
Mixed reality social game | Seed | USA | Multiple angels |
| ?.2008 | Playfish |
$3,0
|
Social games | Seed | UK | Accel Partners |
| ?.2008 | RobotGalaxy |
$7,0
|
Virtual World | Series A | USA | Bachmann Industries |
| ?.2008 | Hangout Industries |
$6,0
|
Virtual World | Series A | USA | Polaris Venture Partners &Highland Capital Partners |
| Q1/2008 | 9You |
$100,0
|
Virtual World/Casual Games | Unknown | China | Temasek Holdings |
| Q1/2008 | Chapatiz |
$0,5
|
Virtual World | Seed | French | Angel Investors |
| Q1/2008 | Dizzywood |
$1,0
|
Virtual World | Series A | USA | Shelby Bonnie |
| Q1/2008 | EveryScape |
$7,0
|
Mirror World | Series B | USA | Dace Ventures |
| Q1/2008 | Fluid Entertainment |
$3,2
|
Virtual World | Series A | USA | Trinity Ventures |
| Q1/2008 | Handipoints |
$0,8
|
Virtual World | Seed | USA | Charles River Ventures |
| Q1/2008 | Metaversum |
several m€
|
Mirror World | Unknown | USA | Balderton Capital |
| Q1/2008 | Numedeon |
$1,0
|
Portfolio of Virtual Worlds | Series B | USA | BankInter’s Venture Capitol Group |
| Q1/2008 | Sparkplay Media |
$4,3
|
Casual MMO | Series A | USA | Redpoint Ventures &Prism VentureWorks |
| Mar-08 | Alamofire |
$2,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Founder’s fund |
| Mar-08 | PopJax |
$4,7
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Draper Fisher Jurvetson |
| Feb-08 | Flowplay |
$3,7
|
Hybrid MMO / casual games | Series A | USA | Intel Capital |
| Feb-08 | RocketOn |
$5,0
|
Social Games | Series A | USA | D.E. Shaw Group |
| Jan-08 | Zynga |
$10,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Union Square Ventures |
| Jan-08 | Rebel Monkey |
$1,0
|
Casual MMO | Series A | USA | Redpoint Ventures |
| Dec-07 | Playfirst |
$16,5
|
Casual games | Series C | USA | DCM |
| Nov-07 | Apaja Online |
1,7 €
|
Casual games | Series A | Finland | Martinson Trigon Venture Partners |
| Oct-07 | GameLayers |
$0,5
|
Social games | Series A | USA | O’Reilly Alphatech Ventures |
| Sep-07 | Watercooler |
$4,0
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Canaan partners |
| Sep-07 | RocketOn |
$0,8
|
Social Games | Seed | USA | Unknown |
| Aug-07 | Kongregate |
$5,0
|
Casual games | Series A | USA | Greylock Partners |
| Aug-07 | D2C |
$6,0
|
Casual games | Series A | USA | Rubicon Ventures |
| Aug-07 | Conduit Labs |
$5,5
|
Social games | Series A | USA | Charles River Ventures &Prism VentureWorks |
| Jul-07 | Three Rings |
$3,5
|
Hybrid MMO / casual games | Unknown | USA | True Ventures |
| Mar-07 | Flowplay |
$0,5
|
Hybrid MMO / casual games | Seed | USA | Angels |
| Mar-07 | Gaia Interactive |
$12,0
|
Casual MMO | Series B | USA | Benchmark Capital |
| Dec-06 | Metaplace |
$5,0
|
Casual MMO platform | Series A | USA | Charles River Ventures |
| Dec-06 | D2C |
$1,5
|
Casual games | Seed | USA | Rubicon Ventures |
| Jul-06 | Sulake |
6 €
|
Virtual World | Series C? | Finland | Movida Group |
| ?.2006 | WeeWorld |
$15,5
|
Virtual World | Series B | UK | Accel Partners |
| Jan-05 | Big Fish Games |
$8,7
|
Casual games | Angels | USA | Multiple angels, two rounds |
| Jan-05 | Sulake |
18 €
|
Virtual World | Series B? | Finland | Benchmark Capital |
| ?.2005 | WeeWorld |
$5,5
|
Virtual World | Series A | UK | Benchmark Capital |
| 2000 – 2004 | Sulake |
? €
|
Virtual World | Seed to Series A | Finland | 3i, Elisa &Taivas
|
UPDATE: There was a set of new updates on Jussi’s blog, which I’ve added here.
View Comments to 'Quick link: List of $350MM of VC investments in social gaming, virtual worlds, casual MMOs, etc'
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Note that although we think the SGN guys are terrific, Lightspeed did not invest in them, Greylock did
jeremy liew (Lightspeed)
24 Sep 08 at 10:13 pm
I thought the $83MM for Bigfish was a huge investment, it'll be interesting to see how they spend it
brendan mcnulty
24 Sep 08 at 11:50 pm
It was mentioned in the original post, but Virtual Worlds Management also tracks investment in the space by quarter, starting in 4Q07:
http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/2007/q4….
http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/2008/q1….
http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/2008/q2….
Chris Howard
25 Sep 08 at 9:51 am
This is great. Thanks.
RAGZ
26 Sep 08 at 9:13 am
While we don’t necessarily think of ourselves as a gaming company, it’s nice to be included! Nice research.
I would also add to your list Outspark, who raised $11MM from DCM and Tencent in Jan ‘08.
Kevin Chou
26 Sep 08 at 11:16 am
Nice write up and blog , Thanks for sharing all those good info
My Best regards
Moris
http://xtonlinegame.com
gargouri2001
14 Oct 08 at 10:00 am
We've recently started the first of a number of social games created to span social networks allowing inter-social network play. It's encouraging to see such a healthy amount of investment in this vibrant growth area.
Back to workflow and monetization planning
Mark Wayman
http://www.socialgears.com
socialgears
8 Jan 09 at 9:43 am
Is there any place for a new entrant?
KAYAN
17 Feb 09 at 2:59 am
Is there any place for a new entrant?
KAYAN
17 Feb 09 at 3:59 am
I am also working on Social Games application development. Including world famous social networking website facebook. Its basically a great way of investment. Thanks for news
Facebook Developers
19 Jan 10 at 1:51 am