Traplight Games, a Tampere, Finland-based mobile game startup, raised $500k in funding.
Backers included Sunstone Capital, Finnvera Venture Capital, East Wings, and Henric Suuronen and other angel investors. In conjunction with the funding, Sunstone Capital’s Nikolaj Nyholm, joined Traplight’s board of directors.
The company intends to use the funds to finalizing its first iOS game, which is aimed to launch in the early 2015.
Founded in 2010 and led by Riku Rakkola, CEO, Traplight Games is working to bring to the market What on Earth!, a physics-based mobile game in which all levels, challenges and live events are created by the players, for the players.
The company has a team of 12 people and has worked on multiple projects with companies such as Supercell and Redlynx.
FinSMEs
29/10/2014
The Press Release
Sunstone Capital, Finnvera Venture Capital, East Wings, and Henric Suuronen among other angel investors, have invested $500,000 USD in Finnish mobile game company Traplight Games. Sunstone Capital’s Nikolaj Nyholm, who is known for his advisory position at Mojang, Swedish developer of the hit game Minecraft, also joins Traplight’s board of directors.
“We are thrilled to get such extensive experience on board with Traplight Games”, Riku Rakkola, CEO of Traplight Games comments. “The investment enables us to concentrate on finalizing our upcoming iOS title What on Earth!, which is aimed to launch in the early 2015.”
What On Earth! is a groundbreaking physics-based mobile game in which all levels, challenges and live events are created by the players, for the players. The genre-crossing voyage of What on Earth! begins with a racing game that pushes the boundaries of social gaming on mobile by featuring user-generated levels with asynchronous shadow racing and endless competitions and events. The game is also a showcase of the technical innovations done by the Traplight team, and it was nominated for Best Social Game at Game Connection 2014 in Paris.
“Letting players create great user-generated content on mobile and tablet is difficult”, Nikolaj Nyholm from Sunstone Capital says. “Traplight has created an editor which is genuinely fun to use with amazing results to show.”
Founded in 2010, Tampere based Traplight Games is a team of 12 people who share years of experience in mobile game development. The company has worked on multiple projects with companies such as Supercell and Redlynx.
“Even in Finland you rarely come across a team as talented as Traplight Games. Their first game is re-imagining the casual racing category in a magic way that combines super addictive gameplay with user-generated content and social interaction,” adds angel investor Henric Suuronen.
More about the game: http://www.whatonearthgame.com/
Press images: http://www.traplightgames.com/en/media/
What on Earth! trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_EVsJ50z3M
For additional information and interview requests, please contact:
Veera Rouvinen
Publicity Manager, Traplight Games
[email protected]
+358 40 147 8421
About Traplight Games
Traplight Games, based in Tampere, Finland is a mobile game studio of 12 people established in 2010. Currently developing their debut iOS title What on Earth!, the company aims to revolutionize the way players – and the game industry – conceive and experience user-generated content. The company has collaborated with big game companies such as Redlynx/Ubisoft and Supercell. The core team Riku Rakkola, Jari Paananen, Sami Kalliokoski and Seppo Santapukki share years of experience in game development, and prior to founding Traplight worked with companies such as Disney, Warner, Sega and LucasArts.
http://www.traplightgames.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TraplightGames
https://twitter.com/TraplightGames
About Finnvera Ventures Capital
Finnvera Venture Capital is specializing in early stage investments in Finland over $170M assets under management. Investments are made in technology enterprises at an early stage and in technology-intensive or innovative service enterprises that have potential for developing into international growth enterprises.
http://www.finnvera.fi/eng/Venture-Capital
About Sunstone Capital
Sunstone is a leading European venture capital firm with over $1 billion assets under management. Since 2007, Sunstone has invested in early stage European companies, including notable businesses such as Seriously, Prezi, Podio (acquired by Citrix), GetYourGuide, Crate, and Neo4j.
http://sunstone.eu/
About East Wings
East Wings offers both finance and advisory services to startups that have a high international growth potential, especially in the Asian markets. East Wings is an official accelerator in the Vigo programme launched by the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy.
http://www.eastwings.net/
About Henric Suuronen
Henric Suuronen is a mobile games entrepreneur and angel investor. His previous startup Nonstop Games was acquired by King Digital Entertainment in August 2014. Before Nonstop Games Henric was Head of Studio at Wooga in Berlin and Director at Digital Chocolate, first in Helsinki and later in their studio in Barcelona. Henric is an active angel investor and his games investments include Grand Cru, Ministry of Games, PlayRaven and the leading mobile games analytics company Omniata. All together his portfolio companies have raised more than 24M USD.
About Nikolaj Nyholm
Nikolaj is a partner at Sunstone and the quintessential university dropout turned technology entrepreneur. At Sunstone, Nikolaj has invested in gaming (Seriously, Makie, Ministry of Games, Mojang (advisor)), open source (Crate, Neo4j, Skylable) and SaaS (Podio). Nikolaj joined Sunstone in 2010 from Polar Rose (acquired by Apple), and previously founded three other successful technology companies.