Kids site Roblox is off the blocks with $4 million in venture financing

David Swan
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 12:15

Your IT - Entertainment

Roblox, a 3D MMO for kids, today announced it has closed its second round of venture financing with $4 million in investment capital.

 

The financing is comprised of existing investors, including ALTOS Ventures and First Round Capital, and will allow the American company to accelerate in its next phase of growth and double its workforce in 2011.

With over 5.7 million unique visitors and 650 million page views per month and growing, the site has experienced increasing monthly revenues since its inception in September 2006.

Roblox is unique among gaming sites in that kids are the architects of the game and can learn software coding abilities that can propel future careers.

Using physics to simulate the real world, the game brings a building-blocks style of play into a massively multi-player 3D game environment.

With a virtual economy and millions of different characters, kids aged seven to 16 are encouraged to stretch their imagination to create a massive and growing repository of elaborate game worlds and other customized virtual items.

As a result, kids spend 19 million hours per month on Roblox, significantly more time than other leading online sites for kids.

"As the internet becomes saturated with online gaming sites, Roblox is uniquely positioned to offer not only entertainment for children, but also a safe experience that stimulates creativity, which both children and parents appreciate,' said Anthony Lee, General Partner of ALTOS Ventures.

'The company has a proven track record of strong revenue growth, provides compelling content for its users, and offers strategic advertising opportunities for its partners.  We are thrilled to have a hand in its future growth.'

Subscriptions, sales of in-game virtual currency, advertising and pre-paid cards at American retail outlets like BestBuy, GameStop and Wal-Mart, have fueled the company's strong revenue growth, with a 75% year over year increase in revenue.

'This round of financing is a testament to the success we are experiencing and the confidence investors have in our future growth,' said David Baszucki, CEO and Founder of Roblox.  'In addition to fortifying our baseline budget, much of this round is slated to boost our hiring budget. We want to leverage this funding to expand our community and our team to make Roblox even better for our players.'