Four months after raising $30m in its series C round and Kabam, a US-based developer of online games known as Watercooler until August, has raised a further $85m from a consortium co-led by Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-listed search engine Google.
The other co-lead was venture capital firm Pinnacle Ventures and they were joined by VC firms Performance Equity, Canaan Partners and Redpoint Ventures; SK Telecom Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Korea’s largest phone operator; and Intel Capital, which invests on behalf of US-listed chip maker Intel.
Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures, will join Kabam’s board and said: "Consumer game playing behavior is changing as a growing number of core gamers are moving their game play to social networks.
"Kabam was at the forefront in identifying and taking advantage of this trend and their rapid growth underscores the large opportunity in the market."
The company has grown from 25 to more than 400 employees in the past 16 months based on its Facebook games Kingdoms of Camelot, Dragons of Atlantis, Glory of Romeand Global Warfare. Kabam expects to release at least five more titles this year. With the Series D investment, Kabam is expected to continue to expand and diversify its games portfolio, further international growth, particularly in Asia, and make additional acquisitions.
In January, Kabam raised $30m in its series C round from a consortium including Intel Capital, the corporate venturing unit of semiconductor company Intel.
Canaan Partners, a VC firm that incubated Kabam, also reinvested with Redpoint as another new investor, although UK-listed gambling exchange Betfair was not mentioned.
Canaan and Betfair invested $5.5m in Kabam’s series B round in October 2009 and its total funding after the D round is now $125m.