Institutional Venture Partners Leads Round; Investment to Fund Organic & Strategic Growth for Both Free-2-Play Category & Plus+ Hosted Services
WASHINGTON – February 23, 2010 – ngmoco, the leading publisher and developer for iPhone OS devices, has raised a new round of financing led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), along with the company’s previous investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Norwest Venture Partners and Maples Investments. IVP General Partner Sandy Miller has joined ngmoco’s board of directors.
“We’re delighted that IVP shares ngmoco’s vision for creating & distributing freemium entertainment for the mobile internet,” said Neil Young, CEO, ngmoco. “We’re looking forward to growing ngmoco both organically and strategically as we strive to build the very best next generation mobile entertainment company.”
2009 was an important year for ngmocoas it saw the introduction of the company’s first freemium #1 hits Eliminate Pro and Touch Pets Dogs, the acquisition of leading iPhone OS social MMO company Miraphonic and the Epic Wars brand, and the launch of the leading player network, Plus+.
ngmoco has pioneered freemium games for the mobile internet, offering high quality free-2-play games as service, driving Eliminate Pro, Touch Pets Dogs and Epic Wars games to more than 12.5 million downloads. With its recent round of funding, ngmoco will grow the team with top talent and IP, expand creation of compelling new freemium games and leverage its unique experience and technology to enable Plus+ as a development platform for partners to build and monetize free-to-play experiences.
“ngmoco is positioned to lead this next generation mobile internet games space,” commented Sandy Miller. “ngmoco has the right team, the right resources and the right model to build a strong and lasting business at scale.”
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About ngmoco
Headquartered in San Francisco, ngmoco was founded in 2008 by games industry veterans committed to the new mobile landscape opened up by Apple’s iPhone. ngmoco creates and publishes socially empowering games for iPhone and beyond with the best and brightest game makers in the world. Founded by Neil Young, Bob Stevenson, Alan Yu and Joe Keene, the company’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Maples Investments and Norwest Partners. To witness the lives and minds of the ngmoco team at work on the future of games, visit https://www.ngmoco.com.
About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
With more than $2.2 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. The partnership is currently investing IVP XII, a $600 million later-stage fund focused on investments in rapidly-growing technology and digital media companies. Founded in 1980, IVP has a 29 year IRR of 43.2% and has invested in over 300 companies, 85 of which have gone public. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions and select public market investments. Since its inception, IVP has invested in such notable companies as ArcSight (ARST), Ask Jeeves (IACI), Aspect Communications (ASPT), At Road (ARDI), Business.com (RHD), Clarify (CLFY), ComScore (SCOR), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Danger (MSFT), Digital River (DRIV), Form Factor (FORM), Foundry Networks (FDRY), HomeAway, Juniper Networks (JNPR), LSI Corporation (LSI), Mobile 365 (SY), MySQL (JAVA), Netflix (NFLX), Polycom (PLCM), Quigo (TWX), Seagate (STX), Synchronoss (SNCR), Tivo (TIVO), Twitter, Websense (WBSN) and Zynga. For more information, visit https://www.ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ivp.