Angry Birds developer raises £26 million

Leading iPhone developer Rovio raises £26 million in new funding
Leading iPhone developer Rovio raises £26 million in new funding

Angry Birds developer Rovio has raised $42 million (£26 million) in investment this week, raising questions amongst fans about what might be on the way from the leading iPhone dev.

Rovio's latest round of $42 million in investments comes from VC firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures.

Atomico Ventures founder Niklas Zennström now joins the board of the Finnish studio, following the latest cash injection. What this will mean for the way the studio creates and distributes its games in the future remains to be seen.

Angry Birds: the franchise

The cash will help Rovio "to increase its reach internationally, and across markets including mobile, social media and other platforms, and via merchandising and media production and partnerships," according to Mikael Hed, CEO and co-founder of Rovio.

"With Angry Birds, we have successfully launched not only a strong new brand, but also a whole new entertainment franchise.

"Angry Birds will continue to grow, and we aim to create more similar success stories. We will strengthen the position of Rovio and continue building our franchises in gaming, merchandising and broadcast media."

Angry Birds has so far topped $70 million (£43.6 million) to date – made up from App Store sales, ad revenues (from the free version) and merchandising sales.

TechRadar has contacted Rovio to find out more about the studio's future plans, following this latest round of investment.

Stay tuned for some Angry Birds news soon and, hopefully, updates on new IP and Rovio's plans for taking its games to Facebook and other networks and mobile platforms.

Via VG247

Adam Hartley