Sandbox MMO games firm Pocket Worlds has secured $7 million in a Series A funding round.

The investment was led by Bitkraft Ventures, with further participation from Everblue Management, GFR Fund, Sweet Capital, BoxGroup, and Pixelberry Studios CEO Oliver Miao.

“Pocket Worlds has perfected the community aspect of gaming. The team has doubled down on bringing the allure of fashion into a virtual environment catering to the rapidly growing audience of casual female gamers," said Bitkraft Ventures founding general partner Scott Rupp.

We believe this team will continue their momentum with this investment and cater to the community of people who are looking for virtual environments to provide a place where they can socialize and ultimately form a connection."

Whole new world

Pocket Worlds will use its newfound funds to to accelerate the development of social-first mobile games. It will also use the money to fully scale its team worldwide.

Currently, the first product created by the company, Highrise, has amassed seven million users. Through the app, players create avatars through a vast customisation system, before going on to form friendships with other users and explore a range of virtual worlds.

“At Pocket Worlds, every feature we create and product we build is intentionally designed to cultivate a social-first gaming experience for our users," said Pocket Worlds CEO and co-founder Anton Bernstein.

"We’ve experienced 6X growth in this past year where people are craving connection more than ever. This investment will enable us to bring a broader variety of social-first games to the market and develop our globally distributed team significantly."