Rumour: Rovio's getting a strategic investment that will value it at more than $1 billion

Any entertainment property with hundreds of millions of consumers is valuable, and it seems Rovio is making the most of its current opportunity.

According to Bloomberg, it's in talks over additional funding from a company in the entertainment business that would value it at $1.2 billion.

The funds would be used to supercharge the expansion of the Angry Birds IP into film, games and other leisure activities.

Ruffled feathers

Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter pointed to some obvious potential players.

"I can see how Disney would take Angry Birds and turn them into a theme-park ride and a movie. Zynga could take Angry Birds and make it into FarmVille," he told Bloomberg.

Interestingly, this theoretical $1.2 billion valuation more than EA paid for PopCap (excluding earn-out); a deal that Rovio's VP franchise development Ville Heijari put in context by saying "But [our] valuation ... is somewhere, I dunno, maybe north of PopCap."

Rovio's first funding round earlier in 2011 netted it $42 million, although it didn't publicly announce what internal valuation this resulted in.

[source: Bloomberg]