Zynga, the hottest social gaming company with 100 million users, is believed to be raising another round of financing, which will most likely result in a significant valuation for the hot social gaming company. And, Zynga, which operates games such as Texas Hold ’em, Farmville, and Mafia Wars, should go on an acquisition spree to pick up popular gaming franchises. These are just a couple observations and comments made on this week’s Vator Box, which features guest host Adeo Ressi, founder of TheFunded and TheFunded Founder Institute, Ezra Roizen (Vator Box regular and digital media investment banker) and me. In the spotlight this week is Zynga, which on Monday was reported to have settled its Mob Wars litigation.
Here’s a few highlights about our view of Zynga.
– While games have sticking power, they don’t have eternal sticking power. Gaming is a hits business with the invariable challenge of always having to come up with hits
– If gaming is a hits business, Zynga should buy up hit franchises, like Playfirst, and sprinkle some Zynga juice on them
– It’s not will Zynga be successful, it’s how successful will it be?
– Zynga Founder and CEO Mark Pincus Mark Pincus has hit rock star status. He’s the Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google)/Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google) of the gaming industry.
– Mark should start expanding his drink selection for sale, like coffee, at his Texas Hold ’em tables
– Word on the street is Zynga is raising a new round. As Adeo says it, “I think Mark is going to pull in an obscenely large round with an obscenely large valuation.”
Watch the show for more!
Vator Box is Vator’s version of Siskel & Ebert meets American Idol. Every two weeks, we put one startup in the spotlight and with our guest host, we analyze and discuss the prospects of the company. We’ve been fortunate to have some amazing guest hosts, from Google’s Marissa Mayer and Guy Kawasaki. Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus was also once a guest host. Our next guest host will be Howard Hartenbaum, a venture capitalist at August Capital and an early investor in Skype.
