Hot Gaming Startup Supercell Is Closing A Round Above $100M At Valuation Around $800M
Supercell is a very quiet, humble mobile gaming company out of the very quiet and humble city of Helsinki, Finland. Unlike their brasher, Angry Birds-making brethren a 15-minute drive away in Espoo, they don’t like to talk much about anything beyond making games and about the company culture they’re deliberately cultivating. All of this belies what has become a phenomenal business over the last nine months — one that makes around $1.3 million per day off two iOS games called Clash of Clans and Hay Day. After about three months of considering whether to do a huge secondary round with the help of boutique investment bank Code Advisors, we’ve heard they sold somewhere between 16 and 20 percent of the company’s common shares in a deal that would value the company at around $800 million. We’re still trying to figure out the exact amount. It’s somewhere between $100 and 150 million, but closer to the lower end of the range. We heard they got close, but didn’t quite get to a $1 ...
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Applifier’s Everyplay Wants To See Your Game Face
Applifier, a Helsinki-based mobile gaming network, wants to see your game face. Their product Everyplay, which records players at their best (or worst) moments inside mobile games, is launching a new feature today that uses the iPhone’s front-facing camera to record your reactions. Yes, the videos are maybe a little awkward. See the one above. There’s probably a viral video montage in here someday. The new feature, called “FaceCam,” is in beta and a public launch is expected in March. Everyplay is a bit of a pivot for Applifier, which was born out of game developer Jussi Laakkonen’s frustration in attraction users into his social games. The company then built up a large cross-promotion network on the Facebook platform for independent game developers. It grew to 150 million monthly active users. But the industry changed as players migrated toward smartphones and tablets. They created Everyplay as a way for mobile games to grow virally as players share videos of themselves with ...
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Mobile Gaming Network Applifier Raises $4M Led By Finland’s Lifeline Ventures
Applifier, which just launched a new platform for gamers to share replays of their best gaming moments, raised a Series B round of funding led by Finland’s Lifeline Ventures. The $4 million round also included existing investors like MHS Capital and PROFounders along with one more new one in Webb Investment Network. Angel investors like Zynga India general manager Steven Lurie, Anthony Soohoo, Philip Reisberger, David Wright and Tekes, which is the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, also participated. Applifier, which started out on the Facebook platform, pivoted largely to mobile platforms over the last year. The company recently launched a new product called Everyplay, which is a way for gamers to share and replay their greatest moments. Everyplay lets gamers share their favorite titles by recording and replaying sessions of games — like a time they might have gotten a high score. “This is not something we’re cramming down the throats of users,” said Jussi ...
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Web Of Trust, The Crowdsourced Safe Surfing Tool, Raises Further $1.3M Led By Inventure
Web of Trust (WOT), the safe surfing tool/browser add-on which is powered by the crowd, has raised a fresh €1M (approx. ~$1.3M) led by Finland/China-based VC firm, Inventure. Also participating in the round is private investor, Risto Siilasmaa, and Finnish Industry Investment, a previous backer of the Helsinki-based company. The new capital will be used for "additional product development" as WOT aims to continue on a growth path that has seen it double the number of downloads for its browser add-on over the last year, to total 50 million.
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Startup Sauna Puts Some Money Where Its Mouth Is, Secures Inventure Backing
Startup Sauna has always been a slightly puzzling thing. It acts ike an accelerator but does not fund startups. It simply offers European (mostly from Nordic countries) and Russian startups coaching sessions and demo trips to Silicon Valley, and takes no equity. That's because it is funded by Finland's Aalto University and the Finnish Funding agency for technology and innovation. However, it has its uses. It's now announced an open term sheet agreement with venture fund Inventure. The fund will now offer seed funding to Startup Sauna’s best teams - so now there is real money involved. Inventure, based in Helsinki and Shanghai, will invest 100,000 Euro in exchange for taking 15 percent equity in each of the top three startups that will complete the Startup Sauna acceleration program. The VC will decide which startup will get the investment, and the final deal will be sealed between the fund and the startup.
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