Social game developer Kabam has secured an eye-popping $85 million to become the Zynga of hardcore social games. Kabam has already raised $30 million few months ago. Kabam’s making a big bet that traditional gamers are slowly going to give up their PCs and consoles in favor of web-based games.
The whopping $85 Million funding round was co-led by Google Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures. Performance Equity and SK Telecom Ventures joined the round, as did previous investors Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Intel Capital.
Kabam makes a suite of social games for Facebook and the web.Kabam focuses on the “hardcore” gamers — the male teens that play Halo, Call of Duty and Bioshock. Some of Kabam’s top games include Glory of Rome, Dragons of Atlantis and Kingdoms of Camelot. Dragons of Atlantis, the company’s most popular game, has around 4 million monthly active users.
“Kabam provides hardcore gamers using social networks two important benefits – a highly immersive, engaging game experience along with frictionless pricing and convenient access. We’ve tapped into a major shift in hardcore gamer behavior, as we create compelling social gaming experiences for traditional console and PC gamers,” said Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam.
The company has grown from 25 to over 400 employees in the past 16 months on the strong performance of its Facebook game lineup, Kingdoms of Camelot®, Dragons of Atlantis™, Glory of Rome™ and Global Warfare™.
