The popular social gaming network for Android, PapayaMobile, is announcing today that it’s now expanding its gaming platform to iOS. The company is making its social development toolkits available to iOS developers as a beta release, allowing them to connect users on both platforms (iOS and Android) for in-game features including challenges, game invites, leaderboards and more.
In addition, developers who have built their social games using Papaya’s Social Game Engine can now export both iOS and Android versions of their game from a single code base, the company says.
To kick off the iOS support, several third-party game developers will bring their new games to the Papaya network in the coming weeks as iOS releases. The current list of expected games includes X-City by Aidi Game, Contagion by 2Clams and Burger Joint by Arctic Empire. All developers will also have access to PapayaMobile’s recently launched Gateway to China program, which localizes, distributes and promotes Western games in the Chinese market.
Earlier this summer, Papaya announced it had reached 25 million users – 940% growth since the beginning of last year. The growth was attributed to the ever-increasing size of the Android market. Now, the company says it has over 30 million users. And all this before it hits the iPhone.
PapayaMobile raised $18 million in a Series B round led by Chinese venture firm Keytone Ventures and DCM this April, bringing Papaya’s total funding to $22 million. Last week, the company announced, too, that it will be one of the first startups to receive an investment from DCM’s A-Fund.
The $100 million A-Fund is intended to support early-stage startups focused on Android. DCM partnered with gaming giant Tencent, Japan’s largest mobile gaming social network GREE and Japan’s second largest mobile operator KDDI, to fund the startups, each which will receive anywhere from $250,000 to $5 million.