Playdom Takes $33M Funding As It Goes International

Seven months after raising its initial $43 venture capital million round, social gaming company Playdom has taken on another $33 million, according to TechCrunch. Three new funds also took part this time around: Bessemer Venture Partners, Disney's Steamboat Ventures, and New World Ventures. The new funding shows that Playdom is keeping pace with Zynga, which also raised a large round last November and another earlier this month. The only difference is in the amounts; Zynga's latest funding was for up to $147 million. However, Playdom's smaller raise still counts as a very large when compared to the average for social gaming startups. Interestingly, TechCrunch was told by Playdom that the new round was taken at the same $260 pre-money million valuation that the company had in November -- meaning that this new money is part of an existing round. Meanwhile, though, the company has more than doubled its number of monthly active users since November, and proved its market strategy with the release of Social City, which quickly became the first successful city building simulation from a large developer. One might expect its valuation to have gone up accordingly. Of course, Playdom is struggling with the same overall decline from a spring peak in MAU and DAU that Zynga is. Over the past month, the company has dipped to 36.2 million MAU: We'll add any more details Playdom shares later. For now, it's worth pointing out that Playdom is actively pursuing its own fundings and acquisitions. Here are the ones we know of, from the last two months: May: Acquired the well-known developer Acclaim April: Acquired Merscom, a North Carolina developer, in part to help localize games April: Acquired Three Melons, another Argentinean developer March: Invested $5 million in MetroGames, an Argentinean developer March: Acquired OffBeat Creations, creator of Super Farkle That list alone makes it clear that Playdom is focusing strongly on international markets, especially for the Spanish language, which follows English as Facebook's second most popular. The company has also said as much during various presentations and interviews. We also heard, earlier this year, that MySpace owner News Corp was interested in buying Playdom. However, like earlier speculations that Playdom might hold a 2010 IPO, the buyout rumors are unlikely to materialize for the moment, in light of the new funding.

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Playdom Takes $33M Funding As It Goes International

Chris Morrison

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