Cloudcade has raised $1.55 million in a first round of funding for its mobile gaming studio focused on mid-core games, or titles for hardcore fans who don’t have a lot of time to play.
The company is a good example of how international the game business has become. Cofounder and chief executive Di Huang is based in San Francisco, while most of the team and chief technology officer Mathieu Rouleau are based in Saint-Lambert, Canada, near Montreal. And the venture backer is IDG Capital Partners, which is based in Beijing.
Huang said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company will use the money to develop unannounced original, tablet-first games. He said the company isn’t ready to reveal those games yet, but they are intended to appeal to audiences on a global basis. Huang said the first game will be a free-to-play “fantasy shop simulation game featuring strong economic ties and cooperation between players.”
“We are focused on a cross-border strategy,” Huang said. “We’re already looking into distribution in Asia.”
IDG Capital said it invested because of Cloudcade’s focus on making original player-versus-player games that can work across a variety of platforms. Players will be able to play on iOS, Android, smart TVs, and other platforms.
“We are building an entertainment brand in the cloud,” Huang said. “The cloud comes in with the ability to synchronously play on different platforms. Your data will be stored in the cloud, and you can access it through these different platforms.”
The company will use cloud technology to verify user data so it can prevent widespread cheating.
The company has 10 employees, but it plans to expand to 30 or 40 within two years. Huang runs business development, marketing, and monetization. He previously started SoWink, a social dating app, and CosmeTrend, a crowdsourced discovery engine for beauty products. He started the company with Rouleau in 2013 because they found they shared a vision for a new game. Rouleau previously founded the Flash game developer Edgebee Studios. Cloudcade has recruited a team of console game veterans from companies such as the now-defunct THQ Montreal, Electronic Arts, Disney, Square-Enix, and Ubisoft.
Rivals include game makers such as Supercell, Gungho, Kixeye, Kabam, Storm8, Gumi, and Gree. Huang said he hopes the company will launch its first game in early 2015.
