Russian Stealth Social Gamer Drimmi Raises ‘Several Million’
-
Comments (View)
- Text Size: A A
-
Email
-
Share
Drimmi, a social gaming developer in Russia, has just reportedly raised “several million” dollars from Mangrove Capital and ABRT Fund before launching a single product.
SEE ALSO: Online Shopping Club KupiVIP.ru Raises Another $20 Million
The Russian blog Quintura says that Drimmi, which started in September 2009, plans to launch its first game in the next few weeks, with another 10 expected to roll out this year. The idea is to distribute them on popular social networks in Russia such as Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki.ru.
Nikita Sherman, the founder and CEO of Drimmi, is a Russian internet entrepreneur who was also the president of Odnoklassniki.ru, social networking site organised around schools, not unlike the early Facebook.com. (Coincidentally both Odnoklassniki and Facebook count Digital Sky Technologies as an investor. DST was also behind the $180 million investment in social gaming site Zynga last December.)
Quintura estimates that the Russian gaming market was worth some $30 million in 2009, after being practically nonexistent in 2008. The most popular game at the moment is Vesely Fermer (the Jolly Farmer, a Russian equivalent of FarmVille?), which generates some $1 million per month. Nival Network, a Russian online games developer, raised some $5 million last December. These are dwarfed by the $275 million that EA paid for social games company PlayFish last year.
Mangrove and ARBT (NYSE: BT) have been partnering together on a number of Russian digital investments, most recently for $20 million in retailing club KupiVIP.
Posted In: Entertainment, Games, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital, Social Media, Countries, Europe, Russia
iTunes Albums
Social Standing
Which media brands are getting a lift from Tweeters and bloggers right now -- and which are getting panned?
Show Me: