Playfish bags $17m VC funding

Facebook games firm Playfish has secured some $17m in VC cash after closing a Series B funding round.

The money will be spent to further consolidate the company’s position in the social games market. The developer of games such as Word Challenge and Bowling Buddies recently launched its properties on MySpace and claims to have over 10m monthly active users of its games.

“This has proven to be an outstanding year for the Playfish team,” said Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Playfish.

“Four of our five games are now on Facebook’s top-10 games list, which is unmatched by competitors. We’ve launched our in-game transactions platform and worked jointly with Google to help define in-game advertising. We’ve opened offices in San Francisco, Beijing and Norway and have now closed a round of funding with two great investors, Accel Partners and Index Ventures. We look forward to expanding our studios, growing our user base and continuing to develop new ways for people to play games together.”

He added: “Social gaming is a significant evolution in gaming and is in some ways a return to the roots of games.

“Our games are designed around social emotions – people play our games with the same people that they would play cards, play board games or go bowling with in the real world. Sharing the game experience with friends makes it more compelling and fun and results in more play time, viral distribution and better monetisation potential over time.”