Diversion gets Series B funding & $1M Sony ad deal

The social gaming company gets support from TomorrowVentures, Hearst, and Michael Eisner

Social gaming startup Diversion announced Friday that it has raised an undisclosed Series B round of funding led by TomorrowVentures, Hearst Corporation, and the Michael Eisner-backed Tornante Company LLC, with participation from “That ‘70s Show” producer Marcy Carsey and VC investor Art Bigler.

Founded in 2010 by CEO Dayvid Iannaci, CTO Amir Haleem, Lead Developer Chris Bruce, VP of content Jason Carlton, and board advisors Shawn Fanning and Michael Eisner, Diversion’s flagship game was “FameTown,” followed by “The A-List.” “The A-List” launched earlier this month as a social game where users live the dramatic, turbulent lives of movie stars.  The game launched on Facebook on July 6 and has steadily climbed to 306,490 monthly active users in the last two weeks.  “FameTown,” which launched on Facebook last November, currently has 483,024 monthly active users, down from an all-time high of more than 856,000 monthly active users.

Last year, the company raised $300,000 in a round of funding led by Michael Eisner.

In addition to the new funding, Diversion also announced a $1 million advertising deal with Sony Pictures.  In 2010, when Diversion launched “FameTown”—which, like “The A-List,” is about navigating the choppy waters of Hollywood as a movie star—one of the movies that a user’s character could produce was “Burlesque,” the movie starring Cher and Christina Aguilera that came out around the same time.  Sony’s new $1 million advertising deal will be a follow-up on its ad buy for Burlesque, which sounds like one of Diversion’s games will feature a new movie for characters to produce.

Diversion plans to use the new funds to further development of the company’s social games.