As we discussed last year with CEO Ville Vesterinen, Finnish developer Grey Area had a domestic hit with its freemium, social and location-based iPhone game Shadow Cities.

Now, it's gained $2.5 million in funding to expand the title into other territories.

The round was supported by Index Ventures, London Venture Partners and Initial Capital.

All your bases

"Mobile gaming is one of the most exciting and active sectors in consumer technology today," said Ben Holmes of Index Ventures.

"Of all the startups we met, we thought Grey Area had the biggest vision and the most gifted and passionate team to execute on that vision."

The company is headquartered in Helsinki and planning to open a US office.

A new version of Shadow Cities with additional features and content will soon be released globally.

"We feel there is an entirely new category of games that can be built for today's smartphones. Our goal with Shadow Cities was to make the creative and technical leaps needed to make this a reality," commented Ville Vesterinen, CEO of Grey Area.

[source: Grey Area]