Puzzle Pirates Raising a Round
3 Rings, the team behind the popular casual massively multiplayer game Puzzle Pirates, is raising a venture capital round to expand the company's product line and to increase its marketing efforts. I invested in the company's angel financing round and joined its board a year ago. The reason was that I believe that 3 Rings represents the best bet for the next generation of casual games beyond the $20 downloadable category - these are multiplayer games driven by virtual item commerce, similar to what we've already seen in the vibrant Korean market. Much of Puzzle Pirates growth in 2005 has been driven by the introduction of virtual items and they are going to build on that knowledge in the next generation of products.
Given that CEO Daniel James and his team have spent 4 years learning the unique ins and outs of this new sector, I'm confident that they have an opportunity in front of them to produce an entertainment company with greater growth prospects and higher margins than those in the traditional casual game category. In addition, the team had been very capital efficient, moving the company to break-even status before going out for this round, which is an accomplishment. Now it's up to us to convince venture investors of the same thing.
I'll be interested to see how the market values 3 Rings given the historically high multiples of game companies. While not my style of game to play - clearly its a market that allows people to participate in the community while not having to be 1337 h4x0rz who want to play World of Warcraft 16 hours a day
Posted by: Jason | October 22, 2005 at 07:42 AM