Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com; founded and launched an incubator, SuperLabs, later acquired by Zynga; and co-founded the political movement, Win the Future. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.
Kongregate is an American video game publisher and web gaming portal. The website features over 110,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public, while also publishing games for PC and console. In 2010, it was purchased by Gamestop Corporation and was then acquired by Modern Times Group MT AB in 2017.
Areae is an American computer technology corporation located in San Diego, California, that was established in July 2006 by Raph Koster. Areae has been officially changed to Metaplace, Inc. to avoid confusion. Funded by Charles River Ventures and Crescendo Ventures, Areae develops the Metaplace software platform that democratizes the development of virtual worlds.
Playphone is a mobile social gaming network founded in 2003.
Virtual goods are non-physical objects and money purchased for use in online communities or online games. Digital goods, on the other hand, may be a broader category including digital books, music, and movies. Virtual goods are intangible by definition.
(lil) Green Patch was a Facebook application developed by Ashish Dixit and David King that simulated a small garden on a Facebook user's profile. By tending their and their friends' gardens, the Facebook users were able to raise money for Nature Conservancy to save the rain forest. In September 2008 it was rated as the number one application on Facebook ahead of Texas HoldEm Poker. In April 2009 it had slid to a sixth ranking.
Zeebo Inc. was an American consumer electronics company and creator of the Zeebo entertainment and education system. Designed for "emerging markets" in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, India and China, the Zeebo system runs videogames and other interactive content delivered via wireless 3G digital distribution. This approach is intended to thwart piracy and reduce the cost of content. The system also enables wireless Internet access for web browsing, email and social networking. The Zeebo was sold throughout Brazil and Mexico, and the company has discussed the possibility of future product introductions elsewhere in Latin America, in India, China and Russia.
Lightspeed Venture Partners is an American venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in the enterprise technology and consumer space. To date, the firm has backed more than 300 companies, including Snapchat, DoubleClick, AppDynamics, Brocade (BRCD), Nicira, Playdom, Pliant Technology, XtremeIO, Blue Nile (NILE), Fusion-io (FIO), Phone.com (OPWV), Informatica (INFA), Fastfox and Solazyme (SZYM).
Zynga Inc. is an American social game developer running social video game services and founded in April 2007 with headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games."
Mafia Wars was a multiplayer social network game created by Zynga.
RockYou was a company that developed widgets for MySpace and implemented applications for various social networks and Facebook. Since 2014, it has engaged primarily in the purchases of rights to classic video games; it incorporates in-game ads and re-distributes the games.
Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and Myspace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.
Facebook Credits was a virtual currency that enabled people to purchase items in games and non-gaming applications on the Facebook Platform. One U.S. dollar was the equivalent of 10 Facebook Credits. Facebook Credits were available in 15 currencies including U.S. dollars, pound sterling, euros, and Danish kroner. Facebook was hoping eventually to expand Credits into a micropayment system open to any Facebook application, whether a game or a media company application. Facebook deprecated Credits in favour of users' local currencies.
Kabam is an interactive entertainment company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, BC. with offices in San Francisco, CA and Austin, Texas. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer social games (MMSG’s) such as Marvel Contest of Champions for mobile devices. Before expanding into gaming, Kabam established itself as a social applications developer with entertainment and sports communities totaling more than 60 million users. Kabam markets freemium games for mobile devices, and social networking services,. The company's previous investors included Alibaba, Canaan Partners, Google, MGM, Intel, Pinnacle Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Warner Bros. and others.
i-Jet Media is a Russian distribution network and publisher of social games on web portals and social networks. It was founded in 2005 and published its first game, Maffia News, in 2007. The company has foreign offices in Silicon Valley, United States and Beijing, China.
Zynga Poker is a social game developed by Zynga as an application for the social-networking website Facebook as well as Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Windows, MySpace, Tagged, and Google+. It was launched in July 2007.
Zynga.org is an independent nonprofit organization started by social games developer Zynga, Inc., in October 2009. The purpose of Zynga.org is to promote and facilitate the use of social games for philanthropic initiatives. It was incorporated as a separate legal entity in March 2012.
Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early-stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe.
Loot Drop was a social video game studio that was started in San Mateo, California. It was created by John Romero and Brenda Romero with veteran Game Designer Tom Hall heading up his own game. Its tagline was "Believe in fun".
Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital, and an investor in Muze. He previously was partner at Social Capital and served as an executive at Yahoo! where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Before that, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and he was CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair.
