Peak Games secures $11.5M, acquires 2 game studios

The company is targeting emerging markets and seeing big growth rates

Social gaming company Peak Games announced Tuesday that it has raised $11.5 million from Earlybird Venture Capital,  Hummingbird Ventures, and a strategic investor, bringing the company’s total raised to $19 million.

Founded in November 2010, Peak Games is aiming for a different crowd: Web users in emerging markets, including Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa, Mexico, and South America.  The company is doing this by developing culturally specific games that utilize local languages.  A number of its top performing games like Okey are based on traditional Arabic and Turkish card and board games.

And it looks like its strategy is paying off.  Since hitting the market in December 2010, Peak Games has become the sixth largest social gaming company in the world, with a reach of 16 million monthly active users.

It seems like small potatoes compared to Zynga’s 232 monthly active users and 60 million daily active users, but Peak Games is on a steep upward climb.  Its user base has grown 60% from May, when it had 10 million monthly active users.  And its five million daily active users is up from two million in May, representing a growth rate of 150%.

Additionally, Peak Games is seeing some interesting user engagement in the emerging markets.  While the average gaming session for most companies is 15-20 minutes, Peak Games’ average gaming session is three hours.  And while western countries typically see a user lifetime of one or two months, the user lifetime in emerging markets is four to six months.

The company also points out that the emerging markets it serves represent some of the fastest growing markets for social networking.  In the Middle East and North Africa, social media use has grown by more than 30% in the last six months to 35 million users and is expected to reach 250 million users by 2015. Social media use has grown 37% in Latin America and 98% in Brazil, specifically, over the last six months.

Among Peak Games’ top performing games are Okey (Turkey’s most popular social game with 4.5 million MAU), Okey Plus, TrendKiz (a fashion and styling game for girls), Zoo World 2, Happy Farm, and more.   

In addition to the funding, Peak Games also announced its acquisition of gaming studios Umaykut and Erlikhan.

“Umaykut and Erlikhan represent a new and important genre of games – hardcore strategy games. This is a big and growing trend in social gaming,” Peak Games CSO Rina Onur told me.

The company plans to use the new funds from this round for additional game studio acquisitions, market expansion, user acquisition, and hiring.  Peak Games currently has 90 employees.