Mobile studio Original Games, founded two years ago by veterans of Machine Zone and Rovio, has closed the seed round of funding. She raised $6 million from investors. The money will be used to develop the Merge Inn game.
Merge Inn
The main investor was the Play Ventures fund.
Anton Gauffin (founder of Huuuge Games), Riccardo Zacconi (founder of King) and Christian Segerstrole (founder of Playfish and CEO of Super Evil Megacorp) also invested in the developers.
The collected funds will be spent by Original Games on the development of the recently released Merge Inn game. This is a puzzle about Macy’s mouse, who is trying to make a small hotel popular. Together with the mouse, the user prepares dishes for hotel visitors, for which he needs to combine the same ingredients.
“The category of casual puzzles is still a huge part of mobile games, and we believe that we can offer players new ways to interact, both through innovative game mechanics and intuitive social interaction,” comments Arseny Lebedev, one of the founders of Original Games. “Merge is the new match—3, and there are many opportunities to fall into this category. Our first project is already showing huge popularity, and we are pleased to present it to a global audience.”
The studio will also spend part of the funds on staff expansion. Now Original Games has three offices: in Estonia, Finland and Russia. The Russian one is located in St. Petersburg. The company calls it “the initial development resource center and a place for investment as it grows.”