Wooga raises $24 million in investment round

Berlin-based wooga, which claims to be the world's largest growing social gaming company, has raised $24 million in series B investment funding lead by Highland Capital Partners.

The money will be used to expand the company's operations, with an aim to improving what it claims is its position of third-largest social gaming company in the world. In April 2011, Appdata put the company in fourth place, behind, Zynga, EA and Crowdstar. Currently the company's games boast 30 million monthly active users.

"When we started the company everyone told us the competition was too intense, we would never make it, and now - two years later - we have three games in the top 20, making us the only developer besides Zynga which has more than two games in the top 20," said wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann.

"The phenomenal growth that we have achieved is a credit to the creativity and ingenuity of our team. wooga's success is based on having the best people, and we will use this funding to hire the most talented artists, game designers and engineers. We intend to build the team to 150 employees by the end of 2011, hiring two new employees per week.

"We have a ten-year vision to build one of the largest gaming companies in the world by 2020. For 40 years, computer games have been aimed primarily at young males - roughly 10 per cent of the population. But we believe that playing is a core human need, and therefore we design games for 100 per cent of the population.

"Our games attract more viewers than some of the biggest TV shows. Millions of users spend on average 20 minutes a day playing our games, returning several times daily. Social gaming is about to transform the entertainment industry and this funding gives us the means to lead that change."