Smule raises $3.9 million in funding
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, iTunes, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
There’s money in them thar App Store! Smule, the company behind the popular Ocarina and Zephyr apps for the iPhone, has informed us that they raised a whopping $3.9 million from a round of venture funding led by a firm named Granite Ventures. That’s a lot of capital — while a lot of people are aiming to get their hands in the cookie jar in a big way in the burgeoning economy of the App Store, $3.9 million is the biggest single payout we’ve seen yet (the iFund actually paid out $100 million, but that was split among various companies and people, and we haven’t heard specifics on exactly what they got).
The company brags that they’ve attracted over one million users already, and that they will use the funding to “help people experience music as it’s never been experienced before and in turn find new ways of bringing people together.” We can’t help but wish them well — hopefully we’ll see more high quality apps in the App Store, and hopefully that’ll pay off for both investors and consumers.
TUAWSmule raises $3.9 million in funding originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NGmoco announces new games, will publish Rolando
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store
Ngmoco, the strangely-named iPhone gaming startup that’s one of the recipients of the iFund, has announced their first three planned games for the iPhone.
First of all, they’re planning to act as publishers for the Rolando game we’ve been so excited about, a puzzle platformer with touch and physics elements. That could be one reason for Rolando’s delay, actually — hopefully the new partnership will end up being worth the wait. And they have two other “fast apps” in progress — one is called MazeFinger (and it does what it sounds like, lets you run your finger around a maze), and the other is Topple, a block-building game that looks like it has some physics in there as well. Both of the smaller games were apparently conceived by Ngmoco, and then passed off to iPhone developers, while Rolando, of course, was created by handcircus.
MazeFinger and Topple are scheduled for this month, and they should be priced to go at 99 cents. Rolando now has a date of “Holiday 2008,” and there’s no price quoted yet. But Ngmoco is definitely making a strong play for getting some premier games in the App Store — we’ll be watching to see how these do and what else they’ve got planned.
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The iFund’s VCs start blogging
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
When Apple first announced the iFund a while back, the idea seemed pretty opaque by its very nature — the plan was to invest $100 million in people and companies who were interested in developing innovating apps for the iPhone. But that could be anybody, and though we’ve heard a few peeps from them since, the whole process hasn’t been super clear.
That’s probably why the iFund people are stepping up themselves to provide a little clarity: they’ve started an iFundVC blog to explain the whole process and (hopefully) keep us up to date on just what the $100 million is getting them. The first post gets us up to date on who’s getting this cash — apparently ngmoco is one of the groups being iFunded, as is a text-messaging social platform (your guess is as good as ours) called GOGII, and another secret project launching next year.
They also discuss what’s gone on with the App Store so far, and say that they’re committed to pushing the quality of apps in the store forward. We’re all for that — hopefully in this case, more money will equal better apps. That doesn’t always (ever?) work, but somebody’s got to try it.
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