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. TC Teardown: Zynga’s Profit Machine At Risk. Editor’s noteSocial gaming site Zynga is making money hand over fist, but it also is facing new challenges in its relationship with Facebook.
In this guest post, entrepreneur Steven Carpenter does a teardown of Zynga’s business model and calculates an estimate of its profits. Carpenter was the founder and CEO of Cake Financial, which was sold to E*Trade earlier this year. His last guest post was a teardown of group buying site Groupon. Like YouTube, Twitter, and Groupon, social gaming pioneer, Zynga is a member of the “fastest from founding to $1B valuation” club, having earned its membership in just 19 months. There are two significant traits that distinguish Zynga from its comparables, however. Facebook Games Maker Zynga To Make $100 Million This Year.