Latin Social Games Publisher Mentez Partners with Playdom, Announces Funding

Emerging markets can be a tough cookie to crash for social game developers because they need to get all the pieces of the localization puzzle figured out correctly. Miami-based Latin American Social Game Publisher called Mentez is helping companies like Playdom do exactly that. In addition, Mentez just announced an undisclosed round of funding from Insight Venture Partners that it will use to expand social games portfolio, increase growth in Latin America and position itself as the leading publisher to partner with. Mentez' strong presence as a publisher, its monetization offerings and brand relations should be considered by all looking to get into the Latin American market. Mentez has 21 games with over 50 million daily active users currently launched on currently Orkut, Google's dominant social network in Brazil and India. Mentez also has 7 games on Facebook with 22 million active players. Mentez' focus will remain on publishing mostly, similar to the services Hong Kong-based 6Waves offers. Playdom has been working with Mentez to distribute Tiki Resort and Bola on Orkut. "We see increasing demand across Latin America for fun and engaging social games," said Juan Franco, co-founder and CEO of Mentez. "This investment from Insight Venture Partners will help us expand inside Brazil - which is our dominant market - as well as help us take advantage of the broader opportunities in Latin America. We've been laying the groundwork for this new phase in Mentez's growth, and Insight Venture Partners fully supports our expansion plans." Mentez' flagship product called Paymentez provides players with 7 alternative payment options including 25,000 internet cafes, 100,000 retail locations and more. Although credit cards are not prominent in Brazil, Paymentezes is currently processing over 45,000 alternative transactions daily. Mentez' brand relations are also strong, where they work with large companies like Samsung and Kraft to run online promotional campaigns, usually involving virtual goods, for specific periods of time. Kraft worked with Mentez to implement special cocoa seeds in Happy Harvest that grows to become a chocolate bar that players can harvest and gift to their friends. This 4 week campaign resulted in a lot of buzz from players. Playdom had picked Mentez as a publishing partner earlier to help them create culturally-aware virtual items, translate content, and provide latin based monetization services that Playdom can then extend to its other partners since its a publisher itself. "We looked at multiple social gaming publishers in Latin America, and - in additional to being the leading Brazilian social gaming company - we believe that Mentez's strong management team has the experience and strategy to win in adjacent markets," said Jeff Horing, managing director at Insight Venture Partners, which invested in 6Waves, Asia's leading social gaming company, earlier this year. "The high quality of Mentez's content, its strong player base and its developer relationships will result in continued success for the company." Mentez was founded in 2007 and will continue to grow their presence and social games portfolio in the times to come. Check out the following links to learn more about the company: Click here to watch a video of Mentez's promotional campaign with Kraft Click here to visit the Mentez website

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Latin Social Games Publisher Mentez Partners with Playdom, Announces Funding

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