iPhone Developer ngmoco Signs $10 Million Deal

Well established publisher and developer of iPhone and iPod touch games, ngmoco has added Norwest Venture Partners to its line of investors. The funding is aimed at expanding ngmoco's pipeline of iPhone and iPod touch games, as well as accelerating the development of its publishing and social gaming platform for connected gaming on Apple's portables.

Norwest Venture Partners only adds to ngmoco's previous investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Maples Investments, which are also supporting the company in achieving its goals. ngmoco has also announced that Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners has joined the publisher's board of directors.

“Our mission at ngmoco is to create and publish incredible game experiences in close collaboration with the best and brightest gamemakers in the world. The iPhone and iPod Touch [sic] have revolutionized both the gameplay and game-making experience and we’re committed to building a new type of world class publisher for this new kind of market,” said Neil Young, CEO and founder, ngmoco. “We are thrilled that Tim and NVP share our vision and look forward to building ngmoco into the leading next generation mobile games company.”

"The iPhone represents a significant milestone in the growth of the mobile gaming market, and has the potential to be the next mainstream gaming hardware platform,” said Tim Chang, principal at Norwest Venture Partners, who will serve on the ngmoco board. “As the smartphone games 2.0 market rapidly evolves, the need for cutting-edge, world class publishers focused specifically on new platforms like iPhone and iPodTouch [sic] will become more and more apparent, and we feel that ngmoco has the right team, capabilities and vision to pioneer such a model."

Similar to research firm In-Stat's findings, which has discovered that marketers and advertisers now have a new way to reach mobile audiences - through the App Store, ngmoco also believes that games dominate the App Store, creating an incredible new marketplace for titles coupled with the amazing pace of adoption of the iPhone and iPod touch. ngmoco has developed multiple iPhone and iPod touch games, including Rolando, MazeFinger, Topple, Topple 2, Dr. Awesome, Dropship and Word Fu.