Inside Social Games

It’s not just western social gaming companies that are raising money these days. 5 Minutes, the China-based developer of cross-platform sensation Happy Farm, has closed a $3.5 million first round from venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, according to Chinese media and sources in the country.

This marks the second recent funding of a China-based social game developer. The other was Rekoo, which earlier this week reportedly raised $1.5 million from Infinity Venture Partners.

Happy Farm, a virtual farming game, has been popular on Chinese social networks including Xiaonei, Kaixin, and Tencent’s QZone. Like Rekoo, 5 Minutes moved on to Facebook this past summer, and its game now has 3.16 million monthly active users and 1.12 million daily active useres, according to AppData.

Western developers, notably Zynga, have both created their own versions of farming games and raised far more money — that company recently closed $180 million in funding, following on the record-setting success of FarmVille, a virtual farming game that now has more than 73 million monthly active users.

Still, given the success that 5 minutes — and also Rekoo — have found not just on Facebook, but on regional social networks, they appear to be in a good position to continue growing. And as virtual farming and other simulation games monetize through virtual goods, we expect they’ll continue bringing in more money as well.