Casual gaming startup PlayFirst has secured $16.5 million Series C in a round led by DCM that included original investors Mayfield Fund, Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners. The new round brings total funding for PlayFirst to $26.5 million.
San Francisco based PlayFirst was founded in 2004 and is focused on creating “shared casual game experiences around lasting original brands” that includes game play “rich in story and character.” PlayFirst titles include Wedding Dash, Chocolatier, and Dream Chronicles.
Accompanying news of the funding was a new deal between PlayFirst and RockYou. Under the deal RockYou will distribute PlayFirst games through its widget and social networking service, with Wedding Dash the first title to be made available to Facebook users. PlayFirst sees the deal a way of tapping into the growing popularity of social networking sites as a gaming platform. According to PlayFirst, Wedding Dash has so far been downloaded 200 million times by users on PC, Mac, mobile and handheld platforms.