Comments on: Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/ A blog on virtual worlds, games, and digital content, from Matt Mihaly Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:51:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: Mike Gribbin http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-52109 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:13:21 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-52109 Great to hear that you guys got the capital you need and deserve! I won't be at GDC this year, but I look forward to reading a transcript or hearing an account from Emily of the start-up funding panel. Great to hear that you guys got the capital you need and deserve! I won’t be at GDC this year, but I look forward to reading a transcript or hearing an account from Emily of the start-up funding panel.

]]> by: Fouad ElNaggar http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51896 Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:16:44 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51896 We are pumped to be working with you! Thanks for the free publicity for the Red Stained Lips! One of the things they forget to mention when you spend all that time grinding out fans is that virtual groupies aren't as good as real groupies - or even those groupies in Almost Famous! Know a mentat by his Red Stained Lips. We are pumped to be working with you! Thanks for the free publicity for the Red Stained Lips! One of the things they forget to mention when you spend all that time grinding out fans is that virtual groupies aren’t as good as real groupies - or even those groupies in Almost Famous!

Know a mentat by his Red Stained Lips.

]]> by: MMODump.com » Blog Archive » Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51323 Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:47:54 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51323 [...] Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing: [...] […] Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing Sparkplay Closes Series A Financing: […]

]]> by: jeremy liew http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51246 Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:35:24 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51246 Congratulations Matt! Congratulations Matt!

]]> by: nabeel hyatt http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51186 Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:30:17 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51186 Great job Matt, and impressive alacrity at the close. Good luck and see you at GDC. Great job Matt, and impressive alacrity at the close. Good luck and see you at GDC.

]]> by: Bong Koh http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51156 Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:02:22 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51156 Thanks for the shout out Matt! We are super excited to work with you! Thanks for the shout out Matt! We are super excited to work with you!

]]> by: Sparkplay raises $4.25 million - Top Mud Sites Forum http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51150 Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:26:55 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51150 [...] Sparkplay raises $4.25 million I'm posting this here purely as encouragement to text MUDers in general: We still matter. My new company, Sparkplay Media, just announced that we raised $4.25 million in funding from venture capital (VC) firms Redpoint and Prism (they've funded things like Tivo, Netflix, Gaia Online, MySpace, etc). If you're interested in the press release, it's here. Why should you, as a text MUDer/text MUD developer care? It's not a huge deal for text MUDs but the #1 reason we were able to raise the money was because of my history in text MUDs. My first VC contact (Susan Wu) was through a VC that used to run a MUD in the mid-90s, and the lead investor in the round - Redpoint - sought us out rather than the other way around because we proved we could create compelling content that people will pay for at Iron Realms. In fact, the whole thing was a refreshing surprise in more than one way (I wrote a blog entry) about a few elements of the process this morning). When we started pitching firms, I was kind of downplaying Iron Realms because I figured most VCs wouldn't really care about a business IRE's size. The advice we got was to play up that experience instead, because the VCs who care about gaming (and there are an increasing number of them who actively look to invest in games and virtual worlds and such) know what text MUDs are and respect them. No, they're not going to fund text MUDs as the market for them is small, but some of them, at least, really respect the insight into the fundamentals of virtual worlds that text MUDs give an experienced text MUD developer. We (meaning all of us into text MUDs) can't rely on eye-candy, or surround sound, and have to figure out how to provide something so compelling that some people would rather play it than massively polished 3d games. What they (the VCs) hope is that we're able to apply the lessons we learned in text MUDs to create popular graphical games that don't have to try to rely on bleeding edge graphics, etc. Anyway, I just thought it was really a nice surprise to find that the people operating at the top of the entrepreneur food chain give props to text MUDs. --matt P.S. We're also going to be hiring soon, including engineers and designers. I'd love to hire someone who comes from a text MUD background as one of the designers in particular for the reasons I talked about above. We're not accepting resumes yet but look for the announcement here when we are. Relocation to the Bay Area to work in our offices would be mandatory though. [...] […] Sparkplay raises $4.25 million I’m posting this here purely as encouragement to text MUDers in general: We still matter. My new company, Sparkplay Media, just announced that we raised $4.25 million in funding from venture capital (VC) firms Redpoint and Prism (they’ve funded things like Tivo, Netflix, Gaia Online, MySpace, etc). If you’re interested in the press release, it’s here. Why should you, as a text MUDer/text MUD developer care? It’s not a huge deal for text MUDs but the #1 reason we were able to raise the money was because of my history in text MUDs. My first VC contact (Susan Wu) was through a VC that used to run a MUD in the mid-90s, and the lead investor in the round - Redpoint - sought us out rather than the other way around because we proved we could create compelling content that people will pay for at Iron Realms. In fact, the whole thing was a refreshing surprise in more than one way (I wrote a blog entry) about a few elements of the process this morning). When we started pitching firms, I was kind of downplaying Iron Realms because I figured most VCs wouldn’t really care about a business IRE’s size. The advice we got was to play up that experience instead, because the VCs who care about gaming (and there are an increasing number of them who actively look to invest in games and virtual worlds and such) know what text MUDs are and respect them. No, they’re not going to fund text MUDs as the market for them is small, but some of them, at least, really respect the insight into the fundamentals of virtual worlds that text MUDs give an experienced text MUD developer. We (meaning all of us into text MUDs) can’t rely on eye-candy, or surround sound, and have to figure out how to provide something so compelling that some people would rather play it than massively polished 3d games. What they (the VCs) hope is that we’re able to apply the lessons we learned in text MUDs to create popular graphical games that don’t have to try to rely on bleeding edge graphics, etc. Anyway, I just thought it was really a nice surprise to find that the people operating at the top of the entrepreneur food chain give props to text MUDs. –matt P.S. We’re also going to be hiring soon, including engineers and designers. I’d love to hire someone who comes from a text MUD background as one of the designers in particular for the reasons I talked about above. We’re not accepting resumes yet but look for the announcement here when we are. Relocation to the Bay Area to work in our offices would be mandatory though. […]

]]> by: Matt http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51141 Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:48:08 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51141 We had some very small investors (total of under 50k) for Iron Realms originally. It was mainly bootstrapped. That just wasn't going to be possible with Sparkplay. We had bootstrapped it to date but we were getting tired of being resource-restrained and wanted a bit of a shot in the arm. We had some very small investors (total of under 50k) for Iron Realms originally. It was mainly bootstrapped. That just wasn’t going to be possible with Sparkplay. We had bootstrapped it to date but we were getting tired of being resource-restrained and wanted a bit of a shot in the arm.

]]> by: Gene Endrody http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51138 Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:41:57 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51138 Wow! Didn't see that coming - but great! Was Iron Realms boot strapped? I guess the landscape was different then, but it would interesting to hear you compare the two experiences. "a sense of crushing responsibility" Sure would scare the crap out of me. Wow! Didn’t see that coming - but great! Was Iron Realms boot strapped? I guess the landscape was different then, but it would interesting to hear you compare the two experiences.

“a sense of crushing responsibility” Sure would scare the crap out of me.

]]> by: Matt http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51133 Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:21:51 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2008/02/14/sparkplay-closes-series-a-financing/#comment-51133 Thanks all! Much appreciated. Thanks all! Much appreciated.

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