Storm8 is about to become an even bigger powerhouse in mobile gaming.
We’re hearing from multiple sources that the development shop, which focuses exclusively on mobile games, is raising a massive round in the ballpark of $300 million — at a $1 billion valuation. It’s not totally clear who is investing, but we’re hearing that the deal includes Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. We’ve also heard that Zynga was bidding hard on the company, but stepped away after the deal got too rich.
Storm8 is the company behind such hits as World War and iMobsters, and its studio TeamLava produced hits like Restaurant Story, Bakery Story, Farm Story, and Fashion Story. Many of the games have hit top apps lists for both iPhone and Android, and between them, we’re hearing the company is on pace to make $100 million in revenue this year. The most impressive part? They haven’t raised any external funding to date.
There’s a good chance you haven’t heard about Storm8 before, as the company hasn’t been talking to the press all that often. But it recently announced that it cracked $1 million revenue in a single day during a special promotion, giving the public a taste of just how much money they’re pulling in. Some other key stats: earlier this month the company announced that it has 210 million downloads, 5 billion total sessions, and 18 billion minutes played across all of its games.
Given these stats today’s news isn’t a huge surprise — several weeks ago Inside Mobile Apps reported that the company was ” open to, if not aggressively pursuing, a sale”, and a funding round seemed another strong possibility.
Mobile is clearly poised to be a massive market for gaming, and many companies (and their investors) and hoping to surge to success the way Zynga has on Facebook. Andreessen-Horowitz recently put $18 million into TinyCo, and Sequoia put $5 million into Pocket Gems. EA’s massive acquisition of PopCap will undoubtedly have a mobile focus as well. Oh, and make no mistake: Zynga has every intention of being the ‘Zynga of mobile’ itself.
