ROBLOX raises $4 million for kiddie Minecraft

Educational gaming site teaches kids to think through physics and programming challenges

ROBLOX, a gaming site for kids, announced Tuesday that it has closed a $4 million second round of venture financing from existing investors, including ALTOS Ventures and First Round Capital.

The company’s last fundraiser was a $2.2 million round back in August 2009.

Offering a pretty unique gaming experience, ROBLOX is actually a massively multiplayer 3D gaming environment that itself hosts a virtual economy, millions of characters and tens of thousands of mini-games.

In a way, it’s a bit reminiscent of Minecraft, in that the gaming world is only limited by the imagination of its users.

ROBLOX gamers use building blocks to create all sorts of environments, whether it’s as intense as a hailstorm or as interactive as a pirate ship battle. If you couldn’t guess, part of the startup’s selling point is that it’s not just entertaining kids with mindless fun, but training their minds to think in a way that prepares them for higher-level physics and programming.

“As the Internet becomes saturated with online gaming sites, ROBLOX is uniquely positioned to offer not only entertainment for children, but also a safe experience that stimulates creativity, which both children and parents appreciate,” said Anthony Lee, General Partner of ALTOS Ventures.

ROBLOX, which specifically targets kids aged seven to 16, sees more than 5.7 million unique visitors and 650 million page views per month, with users usually spending at least 20 minutes on the site. In total, kids spend 19 million hours on the site per month.

Its popularity has helped the startup reach a 75 percent year-over-year increase in revenue. Like many new gaming companies of the 21st century, ROBLOX draws revenue from a variety of avenues, including subscriptions, in-game virtual currency, advertising and pre-paid cards sold at retail outlets like Best Buy, GameStop and Wal-Mart.

With booming revenue and a fresh funding round under its belt, ROBLOX plans to double its workforce this year. Right now, the company has nine open positions listed, eight of which are for engineers.