Inside Social Games

While it’s hard to classify many companies as explicit “social gaming” companies, there have been several financings in the last week of companies in the space:

• Leading Facebook game developer Playfish has raised $1 million in bridge financing from Accel while it fund raises a larger round. The company has raised $3 million to date, primarily from angel investors. Playfish has offices in London, Beijing, and Norway, and will be opening a US office in San Francisco soon.
• Social network turned social gaming site I’m In Like With You has raised $1.5 million from Bijet Sabet of Spark Capital and current investors Baseline Ventures (Ron Conway), Betaworks, and Facebook board member and Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen. The company will use the money to hire more game developers.
• Large Chinese game developer Giant has invested $51 million for a 25% stake in large Chinese social network 51.com. Previous investors including Sequoia Capital China, SIG, Intel Capital and Redpoint Ventures also participated.