The prolific Hong Kong game development company Animoca, which has produced over 150 social gaming titles for iOS and Android since it started in January of this year, has closed a round of series-A funding. The final sum was not revealed, but it’s believed to be well over ten million US dollars; investment came from Intel Capital and IDG-Accel.
Animoca makes a lot of cutesy casual games such as Pretty Pet Salon (pictured above), Pretty Pet Tycoon, and Cinderella Café, which all come under its ‘Dream Cortex’ mobile gaming brand. It also has a ‘Baby Cortex’ division, producing “edutainment” apps for children such as Baby Flash Cards, and Alphabet Car. Most of the games are free, and use in-app purchases and advertising to generate revenue.
The firms’s communications manager, Ibrahim El-Mouelhy, explained to PO that the parent company, Outblaze Ventures, has been in the tech arena for 12 years already, and recently changed focus to try lead the next wave of what’s happening in mobile. He describes Animoca as so far being “a ‘sleeper’ success story” that has not had the same level of coverage as, say, Rovio Mobile, and which is now boosted with this first round of funding.
In a press release, the CEO and co-founder, David Kim, added:
“With dozens of top-ranked apps and more than 40 million downloads worldwide, in just ten months we have built Animoca into one of the – if not the – largest app game companies in this part of the world […] Our goal is to establish the Animoca brand as a major international leader in smartphone games; the investments from Intel Capital and IDG-Accel will be critical to our efforts.
The last time we saw Intel Capital putting its money where its mouth is, was with the Indian group-buy site Deals And You.