CocoaChina Raises $14M From Sequoia China, Steamboat to Foster Local iOS Developer Community

CocoaChina, a game developer that also hosts one of the largest iOS developer communities in China, has raised $14 million in a second round of funding from Sequoia Capital China, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures and Northern Light Venture Capital.

Known locally as Chukong, the company is behind Fishing Joy, a game that has accumulated 10 million users on Android and iOS since it launched four months ago. It’s consistently ranked as one of China’s top 50 grossing games and it’s broken into the U.S.’s top 50 free apps, although it’s usually not among the top grossing there.

While that may not be eyebrow-raising considering that some game developers are breaking into the hundred million range or higher in terms of downloads, CocoaChina also happens to host the most active local iOS developer community in the country. It ends up like being like a cross between iPhoneDevSDK and a gaming company. The company’s co-founder Gary Liu was an early employee at RenRen who experimented with iOS development when the iPhone first came out. He created CocoaChina as a hobby on the side, until it eventually grew into a business that raised a $1.2 million Series A from Northern Light.

The question is how to transform that into something much bigger, which would reflect the valuation that a $14 million Series B round implies. Beyond Fishing Joy, the company is working on other genres of mobile games like arcade-style titles and MMOs that use freemium monetization. It is also working on advertising and virtual currency products that will appeal to its broader iOS developer community. CocoaChina says that about 80 percent of all iOS developers in China are registered with the company.

CocoaChina can also work with local Chinese iOS developers on helping them finance, market and distribute their games globally — akin to what Chillingo has done for game developers but in a more culturally specific context. Another Beijing-based company PapayaMobile fulfills a similar role, except on the Android platform. However, Papaya ultimately put its own titles on the back burner to become more of a platform play that bridges the gap between the Chinese and international Android developer community and both consumer markets.

While a few mobile game developers like Rovio and EA’s recently acquired PopCap Games are making in-roads into the world’s largest market, what is striking here in Beijing is just how much the country’s mobile developers want to find success outside of China. The local market is still relatively small with between perhaps 20 and 30 million Chinese consumers carrying Android or iOS devices. And, ARPU figures on local games still pale in comparison to what can be found in Europe and the U.S. Most companies don’t publicly share their ARPUs, let alone what they’re earning in China, because the market is simply too nascent to provide any meaningful data.

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Leave a Reply

6 Responses to “CocoaChina Raises $14M From Sequoia China, Steamboat to Foster Local iOS Developer Community”

  1. Chinese Game Developer CocoaChina Raises $14 million in 2nd Round Funding | Penn-Olson says:

    [...] even though China is a fast-growing market, it might not be as lucrative as other regions. Over on Inside Mobile Apps, Kim-Mai Cutler [...]

  2. Inside Mobile Apps · China, Apple’s Second Most Lucrative Market, is About to Get Better For Developers With New Payment Options says:

    [...] yuan respectively. CocoaChina, which represents a large community of iOS developers in China and is backed by Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, expressed some skepticism that a base 6 yuan price will be attractive to [...]

  3. DeanBeat: Game companies raised a record-breaking $1.54B in 2011 | VentureBeat says:

    [...] CocoaChina — $14M for mobile games in China. Investors: Sequoia Capital China, Steamboat Ventures, [...]

  4. Inside Mobile Apps · Here are the best-performing Chinese Android app stores for one of the country’s top developers says:

    [...] We talked to Punchbox to find out. They’re a Beijing-based studio that has seen about 20 million downloads on Android for their game Fishing Joy in China alone. Considering that analytics firm Flurry picked up around 35 million active iOS and Android devices in China last month, it’s quite possible that Punchbox’s game is on half or more of the Android phones in the country. Their parent company Chukong, has also recently raised $14 million from Sequoia China, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures and Northern Light…. [...]

  5. The virtual currency scam from China that’s costing iOS developers real cash says:

    [...] which hosts the largest iOS developer community in China and raised $14 million from Sequoia China and other investors, discovered a scam that’s giving players deep discounts on virtual currency packs in games [...]

  6. Jeu : Fishing Joy (iOS et Android) | 16 Couleurs says:

    [...] Punchbox, le développeur basé à Beijing et filiale du groupe Chukong (15 millions de dollars levés en 2011), prouve donc que le marché chinois des applications mobiles peut s’avérer très [...]

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