SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KIXEYE, dedicated to making fun, action-packed games that are easy to play and hard to master, today announced that it has raised $18M in Series C funding, led by Jafco Ventures with previous investors Trinity Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participating in the round. As part of this financing Joe Horowitz, managing general partner of Jafco will be joining the KIXEYE Board of Directors. In addition to Horowitz, Zynga founding team member Andrew Trader (“A.T.”) also joins the KIXEYE Board. KIXEYE has been profitable and cash-flow positive for the past 8 months and is poised to rapidly expand its business with new hires and the build out of additional titles.
“We are thrilled to lead this round of financing,” said Joe Horowitz of Jafco. “After carefully evaluating all the players in the social gaming space, KIXEYE stood out as much more than a one hit wonder, they are a remarkable “hits factory” with a roadmap to produce an amazing list of new titles. This combined with a highly sophisticated monetization model and a world class management team clearly positions the company to achieve tremendous, enduring value and to become a true leader in the gaming industry.”
As its newest outside director, A.T. will be instrumental in helping KIXEYE continue its rapid growth, as he was at Zynga when the company scaled to hundreds of millions in revenue in a short period of time.
“I see a massive opportunity in front of KIXEYE. The games they build are like nothing else in the gaming space today,” said A.T., KIXEYE Board member and founding team member of Zynga. “KIXEYE has emerged as the leading innovator of social games for core gamers. Gamers want great games, not re-skinned versions of the same thing. I’m excited to be a part of this company, and I look forward to helping them continue their successful trajectory.”
Prior to this financing KIXEYE has needed only $4.5M in capital and less than a year to become a profitable company. Given their extraordinary progress, they were able to attract multiple sources of capital in a very short period of time. According to Will Harbin, KIXEYE’s CEO, “we were flattered at the amount of interest we had in this financing and very proud of the significant step-up in valuation we achieved from our earlier rounds.”
KIXEYE’s growth has been impressive by all metrics. Over the past 18 months the company has grown from 3 to 60 employees, and has gone from having zero Facebook presence to over 5M monthly active users. “It is our DNA at KIXEYE to be ruthlessly efficient and with this financing we will continue to hire selectively as we expand,” said Harbin.
Backyard Monsters put KIXEYE on the gaming map, and still has more than 1M daily active users (DAU). KIXEYE followed with Battle Pirates in April, which was the first synchronous, real-time strategy game on the Facebook platform. On a daily basis, Battle Pirates users spend 10-20x the industry average. Battle Pirates was built to engage core gamers in a way that no other social game has in the past: Users play an average of 60 minutes per day.
“The heart of our development process is focused on making games that deliver a meaningful experience for the players, and that’s why Backyard Monsters is the most engaging game on Facebook,” said Harbin. “We approached this funding round with the same thought and intent as we do every game we create, and we plan to use this capital to bring on more excellent developers who can build more amazing games.”
For more information on KIXEYE, and to immerse yourself in the most compelling games on any platform, visit www.KIXEYE.com.
About KIXEYE
Founded in 2007, KIXEYE (formerly Casual Collective) is an independent game developer that makes games for gamers by gamers. Responsible for popular titles like Backyard Monsters, Battle Pirates and Desktop Tower Defense, KIXEYE is the first to deliver proper game play experiences on social networks. The company is based in San Francisco and backed by Trinity Ventures, JAFCO and Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more information, please visit www.kixeye.com