DataPoint: FunPlus seeks to be a major player in social games

This week brought news that the social gaming company DianDian Interactive, otherwise known as FunPlus, raised $74 million in a Series B round. It’s the largest funding round for a social gaming company in nearly a decade.

FunPlus board member Richard Lim told The Wall Street Journal that the company did not want to do an IPO, choosing instead to remain private. The funds will be used to launch more games, and to expand its offices in Beijing, San Francisco and Vancouver. Although the company is based in China, most of its revenue comes from players in North America and Europe.

The developer’s success is in large part due to its “Family Farm” franchise. According to Mediabistro’s research tool AppData, Family Farm on Facebook has seen about 20 percent growth in both monthly active users (MAUs) and daily active users (DAUs) this year alone. Even though Zynga’s Farmville dwarfs the Family Farm games in terms of users, Farmville’s MAU and DAU have declined 66 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Farmville 2, which has more users than Farmville, has also declined this year: MAUs are down 42 percent and DAUs are down 38 percent.

The games from FunPlus are showing high engagement as well. Family Farm Seaside has a DAU/MAU engagement of over 35 percent, compared to 18 percent for Farmville, and 20 percent for Farmville 2. Family Farm, another game from FunPlus, has a DAU/MAU engagement of 19 percent this year.

Will FunPlus be able to ride its farming game wave to the top like Zynga? Having raised $87 million so far, it certainly seems possible.

For more information, visit AppData or call us at 415-230-2558.

Source: Inside Facebook

DataPoint: FunPlus seeks to be a major player in social games