SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Plain Vanilla Corp, the developer of QuizUp, announced today that it raised $2.4 Million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, Tencent, IDG ventures and BOLDStart Ventures This Series A round follows a $1.2 Million Seed round in the summer of 2012, which totals $3.6 Million raised by Plain Vanilla within the last 12 months. A number of strategic angels and funds also participated in the oversubscribed round including CrunchFund, Mesa Global, David Helgason, CEO of Unity3D and Brandon J. Beck, CEO of Riot Games.
Funds will be used to accelerate the development of QuizUp, a revolutionary Social Trivia Platform for mobile devices, as well as enabling Plain Vanilla to expand content acquisition and presence in new markets such as Asia.
“Plain Vanilla has already shown great traction with their unique QuizUp technology in games such as Twilight Saga QuizUp and Math QuizUp,” said Alan Patricof, managing director at Greycroft Partners. “We are extremely excited about Plain Vanilla’s vision to leverage their technology to create a completely new approach to the social gaming space.”
"We are thrilled to be re-investing in Plain Vanilla as the company has exceeded every milestone it set out to achieve in its seed round," said Ed Sim, Managing Partner at BOLDstart Ventures. "Real-time social trivia is a huge market opportunity with no clear winner, and we believe that Plain Vanilla is well positioned to not only be the dominant player but also has the potential to create a new social platform based on interests and mobile gaming."
Founded by Oxford MBA Thor Fridriksson, Plain Vanilla has acquired approximately one million registered users on their real time trivia games for iOS and Android devices in the last quarter alone. The QuizUp technology allows users to compete head-to-head in real time between different mobile devices.
“After launching our initial batch of QuizUp games we saw amazing engagement amongst our users and realized that we could use our technology to build a new kind of Social experience,” said Thor Fridriksson, CEO and founder of Plain Vanilla. “In the QuizUp platform, users will be able to discover and communicate with people around the world based on their interests, a unique and low friction way to establish connections between individuals from different cultures while also enabling the maintenance and deepening of existing relationships with friends.
In conjunction with this financing, Ellie Wheeler from Greycroft Partners and David Helgason of Unity3D will join Plain Vanilla’s Board of Directors.
About Plain Vanilla
Plain Vanilla was founded with the plan to develop beautifully designed, user-centered and addictively entertaining games. Based in San Francisco and Reykjavik, Iceland the Plain Vanilla team includes amazing illustrators, motion artists, musicians, graphic designers and programmers who are passionate about creating amazing games. Plain Vanilla is developing QuizUp, the first multiplatform and real-time social trivia engine.
About Greycroft Partners
Greycroft Partners is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on investments in digital media. With offices in the two media capitals of the world - New York and Los Angeles – Greycroft is uniquely positioned to serve entrepreneurs who have chosen us as their partners. Greycroft leverages an extensive network of media and technology industry connections to help entrepreneurs gain visibility, build strategic relationships, successfully bring their products to market, and build successful businesses. Greycroft manages $400MM and has made over 75 investments in leading companies including Babble, Buddy Media, Collective, Huffington Post, Klout, M5 Networks, Maker Studios, Paid Content, Pulse, and Trunk Club. For more information please visit the Greycroft Partners website at www.greycroft.com.
