6waves Lolapps opens $10m dev fund

6waves Lolapps, the recently merged social developer and publisher has launched a $10 million developer fund aimed at expanding the company's reach in social and mobile gaming markets.

The fund will provide fiscal support for developers identified by a board, with successful applicants also receiving publishing support, alongside localisation and monetisation advice, reports Gamasutra.

"The rationale behind the fund is that on the publishing side, we started noticing that given the increased quality level and the production of these kinds of games, it's getting harder for these developers to build them on their own," said senior VP of publishing Jim Ying.

6waves Lolapps, which became a single company in July this year, has had its biggest success with Ravenwood Fair, developed in part by ex-id Software executive John Romero and Wizardry co-creator Linda Brathwaite. The popularity of that game lead them to create their own social developer, Loot Drop.

Whilst Ravenwood Fair continues to be a relative success on Facebook, drawing around 5 million MAU, Ying says that expansion into mobile gaming is the key target of the new fund.

"We've seen a trend that developers are interested in building mobile games, and consumers are looking to play more of these games globally. The reality is that this part of the business is growing significantly, and we believe that we have a lot of knowledge that we can leverage in the space.

"Whether we're finding ways to transfer some of our existing users over to that space, or working with developers to bring their games from the social to the mobile side, or just looking to fund outright mobile games from the start, this is definitely something we're going to be pushing further into, and the first big step is this social and mobile fund."

At the beginning of last month, the company announced a $35 million round of funding led by Insight Venture Partners.