Congratulations to Bubble Gum Interactive for securing a second round of investment of $2.5 million which will go towards further developing their virtual universe game for kids, Little Space Heroes.
From Bubble Gum Interactive CEO, Phil Mason…
(Phil) Little Space Heroes is experiencing incredible growth with tens of thousands of kids playing every day from over 80 countries. Closing our second round so quickly was a dream run, with plenty of capital to invest in rapidly establishing Little Space Heroes as the number 1 virtual universe for kids and families. In addition to the capital, we’re very pleased to have brought on board investors with significant experience in gaming, entertainment and technology sectors.
The new injection of funds will be used to scale operations on Little Space Heroes, from expanding marketing, cementing global distribution programs, and most importantly for the N.S.W sector, bringing in more talent on board at Bubble Gum Interactive. The Sydney based start-up has seen a gradual growth off staff numbers from an initial 5 in January, 2011, to currently 25 employees.
Little Space Heroes has seen some high praises and acknowledgements since its launch late last year with a nomination for The 2011 Pixel Awards, an official honouree title for the 16th annual Webby awards, and it's also made it as one of Australia's top 100 innovations.
Perhaps what's most exciting about Little Space Heroes is that if subscriber number projections are met, from 4 million for the first year, 25 million in the second, and over 50 million in year three, Bubble Gum Interactive could be worth several hundreds of millions of dollars for a potential buyer. From the Wall Street Journal blog…
Disney bought Club Penguin in a US$700 million transaction in 2007 while U.K’s Mind Candy owns Moshi Monsters.
Little Space Heroes is on pace to deliver faster subscriber growth than both with an expected 4 million users by the end of 2012, its first full year.
Wikipedia actually has the Club Penguin buy-out for U.S $350 million (and not $700 million stated in the WSJ blog) with over 30 million user accounts in 2007, while Moshi Monsters and Mind Candy has an estimated worth of $200 million with roughly 50 million users.