Unity Technologies has announced a massively successful round of financing from Silicon Valley with some major players in the software development industry pouring finances into the multi-platform development system.
The Series A financing secured $5.5 million, led by venture capitalist firm Sequoia Capital, which is well known for picking winners having previously put its monetary weight behind companies like Apple, EA, Google and NVIDIA, and will be installing one of its partners, Roelof Botha, on the board of directors.
It was quickly followed by David Gardner, the CEO of Atari (also to join the Unity board), and Diane Greene, founder and former CEO of VMware.
"We are very excited to be involved with Unity Technologies at a time when the demand for interactive content continues to grow exponentially," says Botha. "We are seeing interactive content everywhere from game consoles to online virtual worlds and social networking websites. Unity Technologies is pioneering breakthrough products to allow developers to best respond to this demand. They are well positioned to become the standard for high quality content development."
Unity has seen massive success in providing a full 3D game development platform for Nintendo Wii, PC, in-browser applications and, most recently, iPhone. Already over 325 iPhone games are powered by the Unity system, thanks in part to the 'drag and drop' interface requiring little in the way of programming expertise.
"When I first saw the quality of games which could be produced with the Unity engine in such a short development time and in a web browser, I was blown away! Pardon the pun, but it is a game changer and the Unity technology can greatly enhance the quality of browser visualization for many content providers!" says David Gardner.
"Then I met the people behind the technology and that is what turned me from a product fan to a company fan and investor. I believe in the passion and capability of the team, the straightforward business model and long term potential."
Similarly, the more complex Airplay system is making a big push bolster its position with iPhone and Android developers as more and more bedroom coders find their feet with indie game design.
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