Social games publisher Pixonic raises $5m

Although this isn’t on the same level as Wooga’s $24m Series B round announced today, it’s more evidence that social gaming remains a hot space.

Pixonic, the social games publisher, has raised a $5 million round from VCs Ventech, Kite Ventures, and TA Ventures. This follows earlier funding of $1m secured last year. The new investment will be used to expand the Russian startup’s social game lineup through new titles published via its PixAPI platform on to various social networks, including Facebook.

The PixAPI platform is said to speed up the process of launching social games onto the major social networks. To-date Pixonic has launched over 30 games by 17 studios on 13 social networks across 7 different countries. It also boasts agreements to publish selected Mail.Ru Group social games outside Russia and those from Alawar globally.

To that end, Pixonic is probably best known for the game Lil’ Brownies, which has been published across 12 major social networks, reaching more than 6.5m “installations”, garnering just under 1m daily active users.

Of note, the company’s CEO is Elena Masolova. She was a co-founder of Groupon Russia (previously known as Darberry), which sold to Groupon in 2010.