Plain Vanilla raises $2.4M for social trivia platform

The company gets support from Greycroft Ventures and others

There’s no easier way to feel smarter than everyone else in the room than winning a trivia game. You know as well as everyone that your victory is literally trivial, but still. It makes you feel like a big man—a rock star. Like you could take home any lady in the room. Like you could open any pickle jar in a five-mile radius. Like you could go back to your crappy apartment and not shriek like a banshee when you see that your cat has torn up your new pleather couch.

Good news! Social trivia platform developer Plain Vanilla announced Tuesday that it has raised $2.4 million in a Series A round led by Greycroft Ventures, with help from Tencent, IDG Ventures, and BOLDstart Ventures. The new funding brings Plain Vanilla’s total raised to $3.6 million altogether.

Founded in 2010, the Icelandic startup—which is headquartered in San Francisco but maintains its development hub in Reykjavik, Iceland—has developed QuizUp, a social gaming platform that allows multiple users to play the same trivia game from separate devices. The platform has drawn more than one million users to its games like Twilight QuizUp, developed in partnership with Summit Entertainment.

The company’s apps are available on iOS and Android and allow users to compete in real-time from their own phones. CEO Thor Fridriksson (whose name really is Thor—I asked...which probably wasn't super tactful) says that their customers range from young women drawn to Twilight QuizUp, to a more evenly distributed user base for games like Math QuizUp.

Other QuizUp trivia games cover topics like video games, movies, basketball, and National Geographic.

Fridriksson says that the company plans to use the new funds to further develop the QuizUp platform.

“We saw great user engagement with our previous titles but now we are working on using our QuizUp technology to make the world’s first Social Trivia Platform,” said Fridriksson.

“We are thrilled to be re-investing in Plain Vanilla as the company has exceeded every milestone it set out to achieve in its seed round,” said BOLDstart Ventures’ Ed Sim, in a statement. “Real-time social trivia is a huge market opportunity with no clear winner, and we believe that Plain Vanilla is well positioned to not only be the dominant player but also has the potential to create a new social platform based on interests and mobile gaming.”

With this round, Ellie Wheeler of Greycroft Ventures and David Helgason of Unity3D will join Plain Vanilla’s board of directors.