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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Russian Startup Raises Funds For Upcoming Social Game Launches

Drimmi, a Moscow-based social games developer currently operating in stealth mode, has raised an undisclosed amount from Mangrove Capital Partners and ABRT Fund, which it will spend on the development and launches for several titles on Russian social networks Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki.ru and MoiMir@Mail.ru.

Though the total financing was not annnnounced, Russian search/analytics/monetization company Quintura reports that Mangrove and ABRT agreed to invest "several million" into the studio in exchange for a 20 percent stake in Drimmi. Both funds also previously invested in Quintura, in-game advertising copany EnterMedia, and online shopping club KupiVIP.

Founded in September 2009 and currently employing 20 workers, the startup is lead by CEO Nikita Sherman and COO Viktor Zakharchenko. Previous to Drimmi, Sherman was the CEO of online dating platform Mamba, which used micro-payments for premium services. He was also president of Odnoklassniki.ru, a social networking site centered around schools.

Drimmi will release its first game in a few weeks and plans to release over ten titles in 2010. The company is entering a rapidly growing space in Russia, as the country's social games market grew from almost nothing in 2008 to $30 million in 2009, according to Quintura's estiates. Vessely Fermer (Cheerful farmer), the most popular game on social network VKontakte, alone generates more than $1 million per month.

Posted by Eric Caoili on January 27, 2010 2:00 PM |

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