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Seriously, a mobile gaming studio that splits time between Santa Monica and Helsinki, Finland, has just raised an additional $5 million investment. The funding comes from existing investors Upfront Ventures, Sunstone Capital and Daher Capital and is intended to hold the company over until a Series A round in 2015. On October 9th, 2014 Seriously launched its first game, called Best Fiends.
“We’ve been thrilled with the reaction to our first title, Best Fiends,” said Andrew Stalbow, co-founder and CEO of Seriously in a statement. “The additional funding gives us extra firepower to extend our talented team of 13 people as we take our strategy of creating global entertainment brands ‘mobile first’ to a new level.”
Best Fiends is a puzzle game similar to Candy Crush. However, in addition to being a puzzle game, as different levels are beaten players are pulled through an animated story set in the land of ‘Minutiae,’ where a group of “Best Fiends” insects battle an army of slugs. Graphic work for the story is done in Helsinki, Finland while business development and marketing teams are in Santa Monica. The game was selected by Apple as the ‘Best of October 2014’ and the company plans to make the Best Fiends game into a trilogy, with the second game due out in 2015.
Seriously brands itself as a “mobile entertainment start-up,” instead of a gaming studio. This is perhaps to emphasize its focus on developing unique characters and stories. Some Los Angeles-based mobile gaming studios like Scopely and SGN have plans to license or already have licensed Hollywood films, television shows and celebrity brands to build games around. In contrast, Seriously is developing games around its own unique story and brands.
“The tried and true Hollywood model is to develop, produce and market a movie or television property, but the scale of mobile engagement is changing this formula” said Stalbow. “We believe that given the seismic audience shift to tablets and smart phones, the next generation of entertainment brands will be built on the power of touch.”
Founded in August 2013, Seriously has raised $10 million in total. Its investors are international as the company itself. Upfront Ventures is located in Santa Monica, Sunstone Capital is located in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Daher Capital is based Beirut, Lebanon.
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