Playdom, a Mountain View, Calif.-based social gaming company, is raising up to $70 million in VC funding at around a $300 million valuation, according to Eric Eldon. New Enterprise Associates reportedly is among the investors. Eldon also reports that Rick Thompson, Playdom’s co-founder and chairman, has raised around $50 million for a VC fund of his own.
Update: TechCrunch puts the round a $43m, with a $260m pre-money valuation ($406m post). Says NEA was joined by Norwest Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Update II: The company has issued the following press release:
Playdom, a leading social gaming company, announced today that it has closed $43 million of financial investments as part of its Series A financing. The investment, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), along with Playdom chairman Rick Thompson, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), will be used to finance strategic acquisitions and expand the company’s pipeline of market-leading games.
“We are focused on growing Playdom into a world-class gaming company. A number of compelling games are in development for 2010, and we’re bullish about our future and the potential to bring people together through social gaming,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom. “Social games appeal to everyone, everywhere. Our players range from ages 13 to 80 and come from more than 150 countries, so the opportunity for growth is tremendous.”
In conjunction with this financing, Playdom has added Scott Sandell, general partner at NEA, to its Board of Directors. Sandell joins Playdom’s existing board members CEO John Pleasants and founders Rick Thompson, Dan Yue and Chris Wang.
“We are thrilled to partner with such an exciting company and strong leadership team,” said Sandell. “We believe social gaming is a transformative industry and Playdom is playing a critical role in shaping its future and the future of online social entertainment.”
Playdom currently runs 13 games on leading social networking platforms including Facebook, MySpace and iPhone. The company is the largest game developer on MySpace and has two of the top five role-playing games on Facebook, including its popular titles Sorority Life and Mobsters 2: Vendetta.
Playdom has over 190 employees in offices in Mountain View and San Francisco, CA, as well as a game studio in Eugene, OR.