TheStartup.eu

Note: This is a post I wrote for Techcrunch Europe as soon as the news broke.

Scoreloop has just announced it closed its second financing round, with a $2.8 million / €2 million cash injection from new investors Earlybird and existing investor Target Partners, which was the seed funder for the Munich-based company. The funds will be used to fuel the growth of the company and to establish (or solidify) its position, especially in the realm of the iPhone. Since launching its technology in May 2009, Scoreloop has over 500 registered game developers that have published more than 40 Scoreloop enabled games in the iPhone App Store.

So one month after the release of its community application Scoreloop finds a great validation for its product, while Earlybird gets in on one of the most interesting new business areas around.

Scoreloop offers an SDK for mobile game developers that instantly adds social gaming to their applications with features such as challenges and a points system. The company offers its technology for free to developers and monetizes on the points system. To understand better how it works and I suggest you sign up on their community and challenge me (Plus: they have one of the most amazing facebook connect apps I’ve seen).

“We are continuously receiving excellent feedback from game developers and publishers, as Scoreloop offers a unique set of tools for social features and monetization strategies. We are thrilled to be working with two of Europe’s premier VCs with Earlybird as an additional partner beside our existing investor Target Partners.” said Marc Gumpinger, CEO of Scoreloop.

Marc Gumpinger, Scoreloop’s CEO is understandably pleased. Since launching its technology in May 2009, Scoreloop has over 500 registered game developers that have published more than 40 Scoreloop enabled games in the Apple App Store today.

Roland Manger says this is a new market for its fund and Scoreloop fills a gap in their portfolio. Earlybird was looking to get into the new mobile market, without a particular interest in gaming technologies until they found Scoreloop. He points at their significant growth potential: “Scoreloop’s technology and the community platform solve many problems both developers and users are facing in the mobile app-world. Scoreloop will help developers make their games more attractive while improving monetization and users will be able to find games relevant to them much quicker.”

Scoreloop, a Munich startup, announced today with a press release a free SDK that allows iPhone developers to build social features into their games.

Social gaming is the direction that online and mobile gaming is inevitably taking. Developers now have an easy way of implementing this strategy, while gaining other sources of income.

Scoreloop works in any game that results in a score. With each win, the gamer is awarded coins and points. Coins allow for playing new challenges. Points express skill and ranking. When gamers run out of coins, they repurchase them for more challenge play.

“Nothing is better at motivating gamers to play more than seeing someone out there with a better score.  And the only thing that comes close to that is the ability to brag about it on social media like Facebook,” said Scoreloop’s CEO, Marc Gumpinger.  “We’re bringing that level of play and functionality to the mobile device in your pocket now.”

I think this can be a nice way for small developers to implement social gaming technologies while not having to develop it. We all know that apart from the big hitters, making a living out of the AppStore is pretty hard, with this solution there are no extra costs as Scoreloop handles all server operations/costs and implementing typically takes less than one day and does not require dedicated skills.

In 2008, the German based venture capital company Target Partners invested in the company, but Gumpinger said that he might seek a further round of investing to finance the company development. While partnerships with some of the world’s largest game publishers/portals and independents will be announced in the coming months we will update you on their business model.

We wish Scoreloop the best of luck.

You can watch a 15 minutes introductory video here: