BlackBerry Partners Fund invests in Sharks, Zombies, and iOS analytics
Canadian mobile gaming company Fuse Powered Inc., who has released such iOS-based games as Dawn of the Dead, Jaws, and Swarm Killer, announced on Thursday that it had received $2 million in seed funding from the BlackBerry Partners Fund and NFQ Ventures.
The BlackBerry Partners Fund was created three years ago to address the rapid growth of mobile computing, and to invest capital, resources and expertise in "exceptional entrepreneurs around the world who are shaping the future of the mobile eco-system."
So this isn't the first time the Fund has made an investment into iOS gaming. In 2009, it invested in casual gaming company SocialDeck, which made games like Color Connect and Shake and Spell 3D for iOS. In 2010, that company was acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum.
The idea, of course, isn't to advance the BlackBerry platform, but instead to encourage innovations in mobile computing in general. Research in Motion, after all, only makes up one part of the Fund; it also includes Thomson Reuters, and The Royal Bank of Canada, among others.
Other companies the Fund has invested in include Appia, makers of a white-label app store solution that powers Opera's app store, Xobni, the popular BlackBerry and Outlook-based email manager, and Nexage, makers of the AdMax mobile ad optimization platform.
So what makes Fuse different from other iPhone game makers?
Marc Faucher, a partner in the BlackBerry Partners Fund who came to it from Summerhill Venture Partners (Jumptap, Vantrix, Radian6, among others) said Fuse goes beyond just making games, and it has developed its own real-time analytics tools to aid games developers.
"Fuse brings a unique analytics driven approach to the mobile gaming publishing space that optimizes both game discovery and monetization," Faucher said in a statement on Thursday. "We're thrilled to be adding the company to our investment portfolio and working with a team with such deep industry experience, strategic relationships and knowledge of the gaming space."