Z2Live Becomes Yet Another Mobile Gaming Startup to Scoop Up More Venture Funding
After Rovio, TinyCo and Pocket Gems, the streak of mobile gaming startup venture rounds continues.
Seattle-based Z2Live, which brought the lucrative Medieval city-building game Trade Nations to iOS, said today that it raised a second round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Madrona Venture Group, which invested in Z2Live’s first round, also joins in. The amount of the funding was not specified.
Ed Fries, who was Microsoft’s vice president of game publishing and oversaw the Xbox project from its infancy, and DFJ’s William Bryant, join the company’s board. With its free-to-play model and aggressive sales of in-app purchases, TradeNations is a fixture among the iOS app store’s top 50 highest-grossing games. Today it sits at #31; it’s usually ranked between 10th and 40th place.
There is an interesting twist to this story, though. Z2Live says that it’s the creator of TradeNations and that it hired a Canadian Studio, Bight Games, to develop some of the artwork and mechanics on contract. However, Bight Games says that it is the rightful owner of the intellectual property, that Z2Live is merely the publisher and that the company is bringing TradeNations to the Facebook platform on its own without Z2Live’s help in the near future. Updated: Z2Live says it owns the rights to distribute Trade Nations in perpetuity on iOS, while Bight retains the rights to publish the app on Facebook. They’re working together to figure out plans to bring the app to other platforms in the future. Bight says it’s working out language to describe ownership of the game with Z2Live at the moment.
Earlier this month, Z2Live said Trade Nations passed 200 million sessions in four months. While that’s a metric we often don’t hear about from developers, it’s a better data point than downloads. With downloads, a user might install an app and then never play it or throw it away. Two hundred million sessions implies that the game has been opened an average of 1.6 million times each day over the past four month.
April 4th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
[...] has switched to working with Recharge Studios from Seattle’s Z2Live for its next iOS title, after the two had issues over IP ownership. (Z2Live retains iOS rights to the [...]
April 26th, 2011 at 9:56 am
[...] under the developer name of JuJu Games. Based out of Seattle, iOS developer Z2Live was recently raised a second round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The title is currently #17 on the top grossing iPhone apps [...]
May 5th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
[...] they eventually came to an agreement, with Z2Live telling us that it owns the rights to distribute Trade Nations in perpetuity on iOS while Bight is free to do [...]
May 17th, 2011 at 10:27 am
[...] voice chat. The game is developed by Seattle-based iOS developer Z2Live, who recently raised a second round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurveston. The game was released May 12th and monetizes via in-app [...]
May 18th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
[...] previous release was Trade Nations, but has still recently raised a second round of funding led by Draper Fisher. Released May 12th, MetalStorm is also the #2 app on [...]
May 30th, 2011 at 11:24 am
[...] is one of handful of venture-backed mobile developers, with a recent second round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. At the time, it had a single hit, TradeNations, which was developed with the help of [...]
August 10th, 2011 at 10:36 am
[...] Z2Live: Hits: TradeNations, MetalStorm: Online Number of Titles in Top Grossing 50: Varies between zero and two. Revenue: Likely just under or around Glu Mobile’s runrate of $9.4 million per quarter given that the company’s games hover around the same ranking levels on iOS. Z2Live doesn’t really have an Android presence though. Funding: The company raised a round of undisclosed size from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Madrona Venture Group. [...]
August 24th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
[...] Trade Nations is credited to Z2Live, a Seattle-based developer of free-to-play games and scored a second round of funding back in March. Trade Nations monetizes through in-app purchases and is ranked #21 on [...]
September 8th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
[...] document.getElementById('singlemouse').style.display = ''; } Site MapEducation Town Hall in SeattleZ2Live Becomes Yet Another Mobile Gaming Startup to Scoop Up More Venture Funding /**/ /**/ /* 0) { top.location.replace(document.location); } /*]]>*/ /**/ [...]
November 11th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
[...] MetalStorm’s new version sits at #70 while TradeNations is at #77. Funding: The company raised a round of undisclosed size from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Madrona Venture Group. Inside Mobile Apps [...]
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:50 am
[...] and invasions. Hits: Battle Nations, Trade Nations, MetalStorm: Online Funding: The company raised a round of undisclosed size from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Madrona Venture Group. Inside Mobile Apps [...]