Zynga, the creators of the blockbuster social game FarmVille, has raised another round of funding: $147 million, seemingly all from Japanese telecommunications and media conglomerate Softbank.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek and Nikkei English News, Zynga and Softbank have joined forces to spread Zynga’s wildly successful suite of social games throughout Asia. The company will focus on mobile devices — a smart move, considering that many Japanese consumers use their mobile phones as their primary access point to the web.
Just six months ago, Zynga raised an impressive $180 million from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies, the same firm that invested $200 million in Facebook. Since then, Zynga has been rapidly rising in value; its most recently valuation placed it at over $4 billion. Zynga has raised a total of around $366 million in an angel and four subsequent rounds of funding.
Softbank has been making some high-profile investments into U.S. companies over the last year. In November 2008, Softbank invested millions in RockYou, another social application developer. More recently, live video platform Ustream raised $75 million in a round led by Softbank in order to expand its Asia operations.
Zynga will likely use the funds to accelerate its hiring spree and make acquisitions as it moves into Asia. Two weeks ago, the company acquired Challenge Games and its 35 employees for around $20 million.
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Tags: farmville, social gaming, softbank, Zynga
