Social Games Site PlayFire Taps Famous Investors For $2.1 Million Round
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Atomico Ventures, the VC firm founded by Skype and joost duo Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, and a host of digital media luminaries have backed games-based social network Playfire to the tune of $2.1 million (£1.25 million), building on previous investment from Bebo founder Michael Birch.
Also joining in this round alongside Atomico and Birch are LastMinute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, LoveFilm co-founder Alex Chesterman and Atari CEO David Gardner (via Sunday Times and more details from Techcrunch).
Social games services are a boom area just now: as the kerfuffle over the latest Call of Duty title illustrates (HMV (LSE: HMV) predicts one million sales in its first week), online multiplayer games are hot property and big money, not to mention the runaway success of community-based massively-multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft. Sites that can let gamers compares scores, swap tips and simply meet other people to play online with are going to be popular—although there is competition from consoles’ own social services such as PlayStation’s Home and Xbox Live.
Co-founder Kieran O’Neill sold his first venture—video site HolyLemon—for $1.25 million in 2007.
Posted In: Entertainment, Games, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital
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