Japanese Mobile Giant DeNA Takes 20 Percent Stake In iPhone Games Platform OpenFeint
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Mobile game technology firm Aurora Feint has received a “multi-million dollar” investment from DeNA Co., one of the largest mobile-social networking and virtual goods companies in Japan. DeNA is taking a 20 percent stake Aurora Feint, and will use the startup’s social gaming platform, OpenFeint, as the backbone for its new roster of mobile games launching this holiday season for the English-speaking market.
Tokyo-based DeNA runs Mobage Town, a mobile-social network that generates around $200 million in annual revenue from a combination of ads and micro-transactions. The company launched MobaMingle, an English version, through its San Mateo-based subsidiary DeNA Global. The investment is the latest vote of confidence for Aurora’s OpenFeint platform; over 200 iPhone games currently use OpenFeint for their social networking features, and it got a big endorsement from Digital Chocolate this Spring (via pocketgamer.biz).
OpenFeint is an open-source, cloud-based development platform; it bundles Facebook and Twitter connectivity with achievement-tracking and rewards features similar to what developers would find on Xbox Live. Burlingame, Calif.-based Aurora Feint was founded last year by Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley, a pair of indie mobile game developers; it received an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Peter Relan, a former Oracle VP and chairman of streaming TV service startup incubator YouWeb. Relan serves as chairman. Release.
Posted In: Entertainment, Games, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital, Companies, Apple, iPhone, Countries, Asia, Japan
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