SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Game Developers Conference — Funium announced today it has secured an angel investment of $1.2 million to accelerate development and expansion of the company’s forthcoming Facebook game, Family Village. The investment was provided by Family Odyssey, which is 50 percent owned by nationally recognized business leader and entrepreneur Jim Sorenson, with additional investment from FamilyLink, which was founded by Paul Allen, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Ancestry.com, and is currently headed by CEO Paul Brockbank, former CEO of Logoworks.
“I am delighted to play a role in the launch of this remarkable company,” said Sorenson, founder of Sorenson Communications, Sorenson Media and early investor in Ancestry.com. “It is refreshing to find a company like Funium that looks beyond the traditional application of online gaming to really transform the way players interact. As we continue to explore new and better ways to communicate and engage using the Internet, it is exciting to support a company with such an impressive plan for uniting family members and friends through a social media platform.”
Funium is scheduled to release its first online game, Family Village, in Q2 2011. Family Village enables players to explore their personal family trees and unite with their real families while building their own highly personalized virtual online community. Funium strives to create social gaming environments that produce real world content and contain long-term social value.
“This funding not only validates our vision of creating virtual communities that positively impact real-world communities, but it allows us the means to implement that vision by making it available to gamers everywhere,” said Jeff Wells, CEO of Funium. “Online gaming has long made it possible for players from all around the world to convene and interact. At Funium, we hope to connect those people in a more meaningful way, so they are not only playing together, but they are also learning from each other.”
Sorenson, Allen and Brockbank will also lend their considerable talents and experiences as members of Funium’s advisory board as it focuses on developing games that blend entertainment with opportunities for personal and communal growth.
“We are very pleased to have the support of Jim, Paul and Paul,” Wells said. “They each have proven track records as visionaries within their respective fields, and we look forward to collaborating with them and other investors as we bring this new concept to market.”
About Funium
Funium is an emerging leader in the creation of Facebook games with social value that produce real-world, useful content. Funium’s flagship game, Family Village, is the first Facebook game that enables players to explore their own family tree while building a virtual, online community. Integrated with FamilyLink, the game enables players to connect with billions of family history records using the Facebook platform. For more information on Family Village, visit www.familyvillagegame.com.