Teatime Games, the Icelandic social games company, has announced a $7.5 million Series A funding round and a prior $1.6 million Seed round, both led by Index Ventures, a venture capital firm that has backed some of the world’s most successful games companies including King, Roblox and Supercell. The gaming startup plans to build the first real time communication platform for mobile gaming. Venture capital firm Atomico, whose games investments include Supercell, Rovio and Bossa Studios, also joined the Series A round.
The Reykjavik-based Teatime Games was founded in 2017 by Thor Fridriksson, Ymir Finnbogason, Johann Bergthorsson and Gunnar Holmsteinn, the creators of QuizUp, a trivia game with more than 100 million users. Plain Vanilla Games, the mobile games studio that created the game, was sold to Glu Mobile in 2016.
“Games have always been an inherently social and multi-layer experience. Cards, board games, arcades, and consoles come to life through the interaction between people, opponents, and the audience,” says Thor Fridriksson, CEO, and co-founder of Teatime Games.
“The overwhelming majority of mobile games, however, are single player experiences, while most multiplayer mobile games are turn-based and are played against invisible opponents. We are building Teatime Games on the premise that mobile games players crave a more social and personalized experience than they are currently getting, where communicating with friends and fellow players in real time not only enhances a game but is as important as the game itself. That’s why we’re developing the first real time communication gaming platform for mobile.”
The team plans to use the investment to double the Teatime team in Iceland – with a particular focus on software engineers – and further develop its platform for seamless integration with third party developers.
Index Ventures investor Guzman Dias added: “Like all the best games studios, Thor and the Teatime team have extraordinary pedigree in mobile games, accumulating years of experience of scaling up a gaming platform with over 100 million users. At Index we have been lucky enough to team up with games pioneers such as Supercell and King, and we believe Teatime have a similar size opportunity today – to lead the next wave in mobile games, by building the technology to spark a real time revolution in social games with the social element at its heart.”
Atomico Partner Mattias Ljungman added: “The next breakout opportunity in games goes beyond individual studios and titles and into the fundamental enabling technologies that will power globally engaged networks. Indeed, I believe the next generation of games companies being developed by a new wave of visionary entrepreneurs will become ever more mass market and socially connected. I believe Teatime Games co-founders Thor, Ymir, Gunnar and Jóhann represent that next wave of European founders, and we are proud to partner with them to help make their global ambitions a reality.”
