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DeNA To Acquire Ngmoco For $400 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:28:26 +0000

Japanese social gaming company DeNA Co., Ltd. (TYO:2432) has acquired Ngmoco, an iPhone development company based in Silicon Valley for $400 million. This is one of the largest deals made for an iPhone application development company. “The big tide in social gaming is coming, right now,” stated DeNA founder and CEO Tomoko Namba in an interview. “We’d like to capture it and quickly become the world’s No. 1 mobile gaming platform.”

“We’re only active in the Japanese market, and we haven’t figured out how to cover the Western market,” she added. “We want to enable developers to go cross-device and to go cross-border. And we need this to happen quickly, in about the next one or two years.”

DeNA’s expected revenues for the year is about $575 million. This is from sales of virtual goods. One of DeNA’s biggest cash cows is a virtual gaming platform called Mobage Town. DeNA recently released a mobile platform for Mobage Town called MiniNation which lets people on the iPhone and iPod Touch play simpler games and create communities. Mobage Town software will eventually be integrated into Ngmoco’s social networking platform.

[New York Times]

Ngmoco Acquires Virtual Pet Gaming Company Stumptown Game Machine

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:28:07 +0000

Ngmoco has acquired Stumptown Game Machine, a software company that designed iPhone application Touch Pet Dogs. Touch Pet Dogs hit about 5 million downloads thus far. Revenue is generated through virtual goods sold within the game itself. Ngmoco raised $40 million in VC funding and has bought out a few mobile companies since. Ngmoco acquired Freeverse earlier this year too. Ngmoco and Stumptown is working on a follow-up game to Touch Pet Dogs soon. [BusinessInsider]

ngmoco Raises $25 Million In Series C and Acquires Freeverse

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:56:26 +0000

Ngmoco has raised $25 million in Series C and has acquired Freeverse. Freeverse is another top iPhone application company that sells top games such as Skee-Ball, Flick Fishing, and Flick Bowling. Ngmoco has designed games such as TouchPets and Eliminate. The investors behind Ngmoco’s new round of funding include Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Kleiner Perkins, Norwest Venture Partners, and Maples Investments. Ngmoco now has a total of $40.6 million in funding. [TechCrunch]

MySpace Business Development SVP Jason Oberfest Joins Ngmoco

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:42:07 +0000

Jason Oberfest, the SVP of Business Development at MySpace has quit to join Ngmoco as the VP of social applications. Ngmoco is a company that makes iPhone games that hired the President of SEGA Simon Jeffery in June. Oberfest will be developing and discovering social games that can be adapted into mobile devices. No word yet over who will replace Oberfest at MySpace.

Oberfest joined MySpace in July 2008 and was the general manager of MySpace Open Platform. Before working at MySpace, he was the managing director of business development at LATimes.com.

Ngmoco Poaches SEGA President Simon Jeffery

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:47:13 +0000

Ngmoco is an iPhone that raised $10 million in funding back in March. Ngmoco games include Rolando 2, TouchPets Dogs, Topple, DropShip, Doctor Awesome, Word Fu, and Maze Finger.

Ngmoco also launched a publishing network called Plus+. Ngmoco has taken their company to the next level by hiring SEGA President and COO Simon Jeffery. Before SEGA, Jeffery was President of LucasArts. At Ngmoco, Jeffery will be Chief Publishing Officer. Ngmoco’s CEO Neil Young is also a former exec at Electronic Arts.

Ngmoco also plans on launching a social gaming network called the Plus+Network. Players on the Plus+Network will be able to create profiles, add friends and followers, and monitor leaderboards.

[via TechCrunch]

iPhone Application Company Booyah Raises $4.5 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:56:39 +0000

Booyah is an iPhone application development startup company that is based in Palo Alto, Calif. The company was founded by Keith Lee, Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen, who have all had some sort of gaming experience. Lee was one of the head developers for the Diablo III franchise. Booyah recently announced that they have raised $4.5 million in Series A funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s iFund initiative.

“We were immediately compelled by the promise of Booyah and the background of the founders,” stated Kleiner Perkins partner Matt Murphy in a press release. “The iFund was created to help build the most promising and innovative businesses that utilize the discrete capabilities of the iPhone and iPod touch. Booyah is a terrific example.”

Last month Kleiner Perkins invested in Ngmoco, another iPhone gaming company. Booyah has not announced when their product will be launching, but it is expected to revolve around MMO. Booyah currently has beta sign ups on their website.

iPhone Game Development Company Ngmoco Raises $10 Million In Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:52:38 +0000

Ngmoco, the company behind Rolando, Wordfu, Topple, and several other iPhone games is taking their company to the next level by raising $10 million in funding. The company has been around for about 9 months and this is their second round of funding. The funding was led by Norwest Venture Partners.

This investment further proves that iPhone game development is a good way to go. Ngmoco is based in San Francisco and was founded by former Electronic Arts executive Neil Young. “Everything in this market happens so quickly,” stated Young. “The iPhone is really the first wave of new phones that have the same capability to play games as the handheld game systems have.”

Ngmoco’s previous round of funding was about $5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers along with Maple Investments. The new round of funding will be used to expand Ngmoco’s premium games such as Rolando, which sells for $9.99. Ngmoco has made five top 10 games for iTunes thus far.

[via VentureBeat]