A Bit Lucky raises $5 million from Nexon

Young social gaming startup gets funded by veteran, more hardcore gaming company

A Bit Lucky, yet another social gaming company, has raised $5 million in new funding from South Korean video game developer Nexon.
 
The company, whose previous investors include Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, Felicis Ventures, Founder Collective, Google M&A head David Lawee, IGN co-founder Mark Jung, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel and more, last raised a $2.6 million round in January 2010.
 
Lawee and Zynga co-founder Andrew Trader will each take a seat on the company’s board, alongside a seat for Nexon.

So far, A Bit Lucky offers just one Facebook game called Lucky Train, which is all about constructing networks of trains with your friends and expanding upon your base county. The app, which boasts just over a million monthly active users, has garnered a 4.7 out 5 stars from over 30,000 user reviews. (For comparison, Zynga’s two most popular titles, FarmVille and CityVille, have received about the same score from users.)

With this latest injection of funding, A Bit Lucky will likely amp up development of its only current offering as well as future games. The front page of the startup’s website is half dedicated to advertising the company’s job offerings, which include positions for engineers, an art director and testers, and game designers.

The investment in A Bit Lucky is just one part of Nexon’s large plan to add social gaming to its portfolio. Besides A Bit Lucky, Nexon also has stakes in other more casual game studios Antic Entertainment and One2Tribe. The South Korean company actually announced back in October 2009 that it was in the midst of rolling out BlockParty, a social network and gaming portal hybrid. A visit to the site says the service is still forthcoming, even though it’s been a little over a year since it was first announced.