UK mobile gaming firm Ideaworks3D has announced that it's taken an undisclosed strategic investment from chipset maker ARM Holdings.

The company plans to use the cash to increase sales and marketing efforts behind its Airplay cross-platform development and distribution technology.

"After successfully launching Airplay in 2008, we welcome the investment from ARM to help bring Airplay to a wider market," says Ideaworks3D CEO Alex Caccia (pictured).

"Airplay's proven 'compile once' single-binary approach means that a single Airplay native binary will address all ARM technology-based devices - including mobile phones, mobile internet devices, set-top boxes and more - without a performance penalty."

ARM's VP of corporate business development Bruce Beckloff hailed Ideaworks3D for creating a "solid and credible cross-platform solution for creating and deploying games, applications and multimedia content across ARM based devices".

On the mobile side, Airplay can handle Symbian, BREW, Windows Mobile, Linux, N-Gage and iPhone. The interest in developing high-end games across some or all of these platforms should ensure plenty of interest, as the company now ramps up its marketing efforts.