Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games. Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. The company has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150 million from Softbank Capital last month and $180 million late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz.
The Softbank announcement was never officially confirmed by the company, however, and the Google investment was likely part of that deal as well. The investment part of the deal closed a month ago or so. A larger strategic partnership is still in process. The investment was made by Google itself, not Google Ventures, say our sources, and it’s a highly strategic deal. Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. And there’s more. Facebook, Zynga, Groupon... la valeur des stars du web social a bondi de 300% en un an. L'emballement des investisseurs pour les étoiles montantes du web ne faiblit pas. Sur les trois premiers mois de l'année, la valorisation des plus grands sites de réseaux sociaux a bondi de 51% par rapport au trimestre précédent, d'après des données du cabinet Nyppex, relayées par le New York Post.
Sur un an, la valeur de ces sociétés s'est envolée de... 377%. Principal contributeur : Facebook, valorisé 65 milliards de dollars à fin mars (+57% par rapport à décembre). La hausse est encore plus marquée pour Zynga, l'éditeur de jeux pour réseaux sociaux (Farmville, FrontierVille...). Report: Zynga Worth More Than $3.3 Billion. A new report by Global Silicon Valley Partner’s NeXt Up Research states that Zynga, the world’s top Facebook Application developer, may have a valuation of more than $3.3 billion. This is based on 35% growth over the next four years to expand this year’s revenue projection of $460 million to $1.1 billion in 2014. In addition to the valuation, the report’s analysis includes some interesting facts about their sources of revenue and user behavior. Specifically, the report mentions that Zynga has grown from 30 million to 230 million over the last 10 months, and is continuing to grow, largely on the strength of Farmville at close to 80,000,000 MAU.
When analyzing monetization, we see that Zynga makes 40% of its ottal revenue from microtransactions and virtual goods, the rest coming from advertising and marketing offers. Breaking down the audience, we see 2% or 3% of Zynga users spend money on Zynga games. Zynga by the Numbers. By this point everyone has heard of Zynga, the company behind Facebook megahit FarmVille and a slew of other hit social games. But just how big is the company? We decided to take a step back from the rhetoric and take a look at some cold, hard numbers to get an answer. When we could find them, that is. Unlike EA, Nintendo, and most other major players in the core games space, Zynga is a private company. This is an often-overlooked Zynga statistic, despite being one of the most eye-popping of all. The figure above doesn't count part-time employees or contractors, which are very numerous.
Talk about rapid expansion! Despite already expanding to over 600 full time positions, Zynga has not yet finished its growth phase. At the Game Developer's Conference in early March, the talk around the Social Games Summit was that Zynga might well surpass Facebook itself in total headcount by the end of 2010. In late 2009 everyone assumed that Zynga was preparing to take the company public. Zynga Pushing Nine Figures In Revenues Thanks To Micro-Transactions. Zynga, the online gaming publisher, is making a ton of money. Just how much? Well, earlier reports put revenue at something around $50 million, but some new numbers obtained by Sarah Lacy suggests that it’s closer to $100 million. And clearly, it’s accelerating. We’re hearing that the run rate for 2009 may even be well above that.
So in case it wasn’t already clear, there looks to be a bright future in the online gaming sphere and specifically around micro-transactions. That’s how Zynga makes most of its money. With some of its leading games on MySpace and Facebook, it charges users for playing time or for things like chips in poker. And Zynga recently transitioned this model to the iPhone, but because the iPhone doesn’t yet allow for in-app purchases, it has been forced to sell expensive versions of its apps like Live Poker, with chips included. Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell. Last weekend I wrote about how the big social gaming companies are making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on Facebook and MySpace through games like Farmville and Mobsters. Major media can’t stop applauding the companies long enough to understand what’s really going on with these games.
The real story isn’t the business success of these startups. It’s the completely unethical way that they are going about achieving that success. In short, these games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience. Which is fine. The reason why I call this an ecosystem is that it’s a self-reinforcing downward cycle. Here’s the really insidious part: game developers who monetize the best (and that’s Zynga) make the most money and can spend the most on advertising. The games that scam the most, win. And some users aren’t dumb, either. Left alone, the system really will slide into a full blown disaster. Examples Of Scams: The Zynga Statistics: Games, Platforms, Timeline and Revenue Analysis.
Zynga Reveals Profit And Revenues As It Looks To Raise $500 Million - Agustino Fontevecchia - Moral Hazard. Farmville, la poule aux œufs d'or de Zynga. The Latest Stats on Zynga: New Traffic, Revenue and a $1 Billion Valuation? As the largest and most aggressive social gaming company on the market today, Zynga is a great target for rumor, speculation and criticism. And so we have a few more data points on it, both internal numbers and independent reports. Traffic – Last week, the company crossed the 200 million total monthly active user market on Facebook, according to AppData — with more than half of those users coming since the beginning of September.
Today, in a press release, the company says it has 100 million monthly unique visitors. How do we explain the difference? Revenue — We’ve heard all sorts of wild estimates about Zynga’s revenue, including that it is reaching towards half a billion. Valuation — Zynga had at one point talked to Electronic Arts about a possible acquisition for up to $1 billion, we heard last month. For Zynga watchers, all of these data points raise interesting questions about the $15.1 million that the company supposedly raised recently, and we heard at a $625 million valuation. We Estimate Zynga Revenues Around $270M In 2009 And $240M In 2010 YTD. This is a guest post by Jeremy Liew, a managing director at Lightspeed Venture Partners where he invests in the internet and mobile sectors.
His investments include Flixster, Living Social, Playdom, Rockyou and Shoedazzle. He blogs at lsvp.wordpress.com. There has been a lot of speculation about Zynga’s revenue. Last week Business insider said: Zynga, the social gamesmaker behind Farmville, has a revenue run-rate around $600 million, a source close to the company tells us. Businessweek says: More than 120 million people play Zynga’s online games. We thought that we would estimate Zynga’s revenue ourselves by looking at publicly available info. Focused on only top games on FacebookFor each game, pulled daily active user (DAU) numbers on first of every month since 1/1/09 from Developer Analytics.To get the average DAU for each month, took the average of the first of the month and the first of the following month.
Again, note that these are all estimates. We estimate Zynga revenues around $270M in 2009 and $240M in 2010 YTD. This also appears as a guest post on Techcrunch There has been a lot of speculation about Zynga’s revenue. Last week Business insider said: Zynga, the social gamesmaker behind Farmville, has a revenue run-rate around $600 million, a source close to the company tells us. Another source confirms that Zynga is doing well over $1 million in revenue a day. Businessweek says: More than 120 million people play Zynga’s online games. We thought that we would estimate Zynga’s revenue ourselves by looking at publicly available info.
Focused on only top games on FacebookFor each game, pulled DAU numbers on first of every month since 1/1/09 from Developer Analytics.To get the average DAU for each month, took the average of the first of the month and the first of the following month. Again, note that these are all estimates. Feel free to see the details and play with the assumptions yourself – the spreadsheet is here. Play with the assumptions, and let us know what you think.