TinyCo closes $18 million for mobile gaming

Andreeseen Horowitz leads Series A round with help from Ron Conway, Keith Rabois and other angels

I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: if you’re a mobile and/or social gaming startup, now’s your time to get funded. Still.
 
Mobile gaming startup TinyCo announced Friday that it has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, and several other angels. Marc Andreessen will join the company’s board of directors.
 
This isn't a fluke and it's hardly a risk. Andreessen Horowitz and the participating angels are well-known, experienced investors that still see a bright future (and great ROI) in gaming startups developing for Facebook and the iPhone.
 
So far, the young studio has released two titles to the App Store, Tiny Chef and Tap Resort Party. In the first, you design and run your own restaurant, and in the second, you design and run your own island resort. Both apps are free, but TinyCo recoups any losses by charging for virtual goods, or specialty items, within the game.
 
The games, TinyCo says, have been downloaded by over 10 million iPhone users to date.
 
Mobile and social gaming seem endlessly hot, and today’s round affirms that. Three that have raised institutional rounds in the past two weeks include Digital Chocolate with a $12 million Series D, Ayeah with a $530,000 seed, and Raptr, with a $15 million Series B.

“Mobile-social gaming is at a pretty nascent stage,” said co-founder Ian Spivey. “In 12 months, it’s going to be a very different landscape with 100 million new Android handsets and 50 million more iOS handsets coming on. More and more people are going to become comfortable making in app payments and the quality of games is going to go up. We want to give ourselves all the tools we need to become that market leader.”

Already made up of 37 employees, from technology companies as well-known as Playdom, Electronic Arts, Amazon, Microsoft and others, TinyCo is still looking to hire more. And now it has the funds to make those hires. Right now, the startup lists over 20 open positions in design, engineering, production and more, and all are located at TinyCo’s headquarters in San Francisco, Calif.

TinyCo was co-founded by Suli Ali and Ian Spivey in 2009.