Mindcandy, best known for its MoshiMonsters educational virtual world for kids has pulled off a number of moves in a short space of time, including raising a new round and acquiring content.
Firstly, it’s raised further amount of funding, although the amount was not disclosed. It’s emerged that just before Chistmas MindCandy raised a round of Convertible Loan Notes. All its existing VC investors participated (Accel, Index and Spark), plus one new investor, who remains unnamed. CEO Michael Smith told me “I’m very happy with the deal as the cash should take us to breakeven. Loan Notes make sense because if we decide to raise another round it would be at a higher valuation than we could have achieved in December, when Moshi Monsters was still pre-revenue.”
Plus, this month Moshi has launched its subscription service – no doubt good timing. For £4.95 a month (or £35 for the year) users get a Moshi Monsters passport and can access premium elements.
Smith says this is going well enough to make them “cash flow positive on a daily basis”. In December Moshi reached one million users, boosted by early viral growth without any formal marketing so far. Moshi Monsters lets its target market of young users create and care for cartoonish monsters. IN doing so they must pass through educational tests like 60-second puzzles each day across a range of skills like maths and English.
MindCandy has also acquired the TutPup gaming site from Cominded, the company owned by Paul Birch, a co-founder of Bebo and brother to Michael Birch. The site has 350,000 registered users and allows kids to play multi-player educational ‘puzzle battles’ against each other. Try it – it’s addictive.
The plan now is to integrate it into Moshi Monsters to increase the breadth of multi-player puzzle games.
Ed Relf is also a new hire as Head of Marketing. He has previously held senior marketing roles at Codemasters Online, Virgin Games and Hasbro.
A million users? Kids must really like it. I can see parents jumping on board also.
What premium content could they possibly offer, by the way?
Wow, ever since i found this website i have been more in touch with my friends. It is realy fun and somewhat educational! If u hadn’t of made this game ,the enternet would not be as fun! But one sugjustion i think u should open up that shop on sludge street that has just been sitting there and mynews! Other than that I love this Awesome ,spectacular ,and radical game!
There are people of all ages on the site, although predominately chidren for whom it is designed.The adults appreciate it because of the brilliant graphics, cute monsters and puzzles that are graded to challenge the most active brains. It is also constantly adding new elements to prevent boredom setting in
je suis un marocain je peux visite avec vous le jeux
Paul Birch may have funded the business but the concept and enterprise was run by expat Aussie, Richard Taylor, who is a well known entrepreneur in the education sector.
i have a moshi
myname_8oh3
(owner)
hi i am eeling!
tmo0o7_ansana@hotmail.com
this is really the BEST SITE in the world i wanted to vote 4 them but don’t know how any ways they so deserve to WIN…
very nice game