In a new round of funding, game-maker Sorrent has raised $20 million. The financing round was led by Granite Global Ventures and was a part of the company’s fourth overall round. Sorrent is focused on creating games for mobile devices.
Sorrent raises $20 million
San Mateo-based mobile game company Sorrent has raised $20 million in its Series D funding round led by Granite Global Ventures. The funds will be used to further the company’s global expansion and expand its portfolio beyond games. The investment will also provide the company with working capital for the next phase of its explosive growth.
Sorrent has raised over $50 million in funding to date. This latest round reflects the recent successes of the company and its rapid revenue growth. In recent months, the company has partnered with Atari to produce mobile games for the gaming company. It also recently announced a multi-year agreement with Twentieth Century FOX to create mobile games based on its film titles.
LightPointe gets $17M
LightPointe is a company that started out on an MDA SBIR in 1999 and has since gotten $17M in VC funding, on top of $45M from earlier rounds. They have over 2,000 installations in 60 countries and are a good example of the kind of ROI that SBIR can yield. You can read more about the company on the MDA’s tech commercialization page. The WO guys on MDA track good things that come out of MDA tech spending, and this is one of them.
Kateeva closes Series E funding round
Silicon Valley technology company Kateeva has closed a Series E funding round for Game-Maker sorrent. The round included new investors from China and totaled $200 million. The company develops ink-jet systems for the production of flexible OLED displays. It also offers ink-jet based encapsulation systems to protect the flexible displays.
The funding round comes just months after the company raised a $1 million seed round. The company’s new name, Kateeva, is an acronym for TJet Technologies. The company’s technology enables the mass-production of large-size OLEDs in a cost-effective way.
Koronis Pharmaceuticals gets $20M
Koronis Pharmaceuticals is an unnamed Redmond, WA-based company with one SBIR. It is not related to Koronis Biomedical in Minnesota. The company is working on a genetic mutation repair technology for blood cancers. In the meantime, Kosan Biosciences has fallen 43% in the wake of bad news for blood-cancer patients. Meanwhile, Krystal Biotech in Pittsburgh, PA, has one gene therapy candidate for dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
MDA receives Orphan Medicinal Product Design grant
A new research initiative has received a $3.5 million grant from the MDA to advance the design and development of orphan medicines. OOPD is a process that promotes collaboration between all stakeholders and incorporates patient input. The goal of the program is to make medicines available to those who need them most.
The program supports clinical trials of products to address unmet medical needs in rare diseases. It also supports the development of new therapeutic indications for previously approved drugs. More than 700 rare diseases affect 30 million Americans, and only a handful of those have approved treatments. The Orphan Products Grants Program was established in 1983 to help researchers develop new treatments for these diseases. Since then, more than 70 studies have been funded.
The program is open to any entity, both for-profit and nonprofit. Applicants are required to provide a summary of the project to be considered. Applications for the program are reviewed by a panel of experts in rare diseases and are funded according to their relevance to program priorities. The committee also incorporates input from the FDA review divisions.
The EMA Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products awards the Orphan Medicinal Product Design designation to medicines that are needed to treat life-threatening or debilitating diseases. This designation gives the medicines greater protection from market competition and reduced fee amounts for centralized activities. A key benefit of being designated as an orphan medicine is ten years of market exclusivity in the EU.
Integration of Macrospace with Sorrent
Sorrent, a leading publisher of mobile entertainment, has agreed to acquire London-based game maker Macrospace. The acquisition will be a combination of cash and stock. The company expects the acquisition to give it a stronger foothold in Europe. In addition, Sorrent intends to introduce the games developed by Macrospace to the U.S. market, where the company has a licensing agreement with Turner Broadcasting.
Macrospace is a developer of mobile games and has developed over 40 mobile games, including original titles and third-party brand games. The company has also partnered with leading media companies, including Cartoon Network, Eidos, Square Enix, and Celador International. Its mobile game studio provides software and services to wireless carriers.
Dean Takahashi is a writer for VentureBeat and lead writer for the GamesBeat section. He has been a tech journalist for 28 years, and focuses on gaming tech. His writing has appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and more. He has also written two books and organized an annual games conference. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
VentureBeat is an American website that publishes news, analysis, long-form features, videos, interviews, and video articles. The site consists of several news “Beats” and includes a separate website, GamesBeat, that covers the video game industry. Takahashi has also been a game developer for over 10 years, and now writes for both sites.
Dean Takahashi is the lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist for 28 years and has covered games for 21 years. Takahashi’s work is a blend of news, analysis, and opinion. He lives in San Francisco.
Conclusion
Takahashi sees VentureBeat as an ally for underrepresented groups. He is the son of a videogame developer and also has a mother who was a game developer. He believes that games have a strong future and have the ability to reach consumers across platforms. His views on gaming are consistent throughout his work at VentureBeat.
