June 18
eRepublik receives €2 million funding to create jobs
eRepublik receives €2 million in Series A round from AGF
Ireland-based social strategy gaming company eRepublik Labs has raised €2 million from AGF Private Equity in a Series A round of financing. The proceeds will be used add talent to the existing team of 30 and further develop its first massively multiplayer online strategy game, eRepublik. The company will also prepare the launch of new games based on the eRepublik platform. AGF’s Guillaume Lautour will join the company’s board.
Founded in 2007, eRepublik Labs adds a social aspect to the way strategy games are created, distributed and played by leveraging the power of communities and the Web. The company’s flagship game, eRepublik, is set in a “mirror version” of the real world in which players join in local and national politics, set economic policy, start businesses and wage wars with other countries. The game was developed in a non-traditional way: from the outset users have provided input on a prototype, which helped the team to improve the game further. According to the company’s CEO, Alexis Bonte, the existing game represents just 25% of what the final product will be.
Involving users in the development of the game not only improves the product, it also helps the marketing of it. The game is spread virally in terms of content and users, with almost no distribution and content creation costs. Community input allowed the company to make regular releases, adjust game-play, try new things and add new features, and increase the number of options players have to interact among each other. Within 500 days, the company welcomed more 350,000 citizen (user) accounts, while eRepublik has an active community of over 120,000 frequent players. In May of 2009, www.erepublik.com received over 3.7 million visits. The platform expects to grow further after launching a Spanish-language version of eRepublik earlier this month. Other languages are expected to follow.
eRepublik Labs received a seed round of €200,000 in 2007. In June 2008, the company raised an “angel round” of €550,000 from investors including Brent Hoberman, Stefan Glaenzer, Mihai Crasneanu, Alexandre Almajeanu, Diego Meller and Philippe Seignol. AGF Private Equity also participated in the 2008 round.