News

Funzio rumoured to be seeking a $50 million round to compete with Storm8, Kabam, Zynga and GREE

Would value company at $350 million

Funzio rumoured to be seeking a $50 million round to compete with Storm8, Kabam, Zynga and GREE
US Facebook turned mobile publisher Funzio is apparently on the funding trail.

The San Francisco company has already raised a not unimpressive $20 million during its Series A round in May 2011.

Now, however, rumours are emerging that it's looking to put together a $50 million B round.

On the basis of $70 million raised, it's suggested that this would value the company at $350 million, although that's an enterprise valuation, not one that necessarily backed by the company's current performance.

Previous investors were IDG Ventures and its Chinese arm IDG Capital Partners, with Playdom co-founder Rich Thompson also chipping in, so this round would look to tempt in new investors. Typically IDG Ventures says it invests between $1 to $5 million per round.

Time to accelerate

As for Funzio's performance, it's not been very active on mobile to-date, releasing Crime City, Kingdom Age and Modern War for iOS. Crime City has also come to Android.

Nevertheless, Crime City has been in the US top grossing charts for 246 days, peaking at #2. Modern War is current in the top 10, also peaking at #2.

Still, with the likes of Zynga, GREE, DeNA and Kabam - which has raised $125 million - spending very heavily on user acquisition, not to mention plenty of smaller outfits such as Storm8, Glu, and Machine Zone - which just raised $8 million - a big war chest is now a necessity to play in this space.

[source: VentureBeat]
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.