Digital Chocolate Secures $22.5 Million in Series C Funding with Six New Investors

30 July 2006

San Mateo, CA, & Helsinki, Finland (PRWEB) July 28, 2006 -- Digital Chocolate Ltd., a leading publisher of high-quality, original software for mobile phones, today announced that it has secured $22.5 million in Series C funding led by new investor, late-stage and expansion venture capital fund Bridgescale Partners. Digital Chocolate continues to grow and enhance its relationships with customers and these funds will allow the company to expand further in their bid to become the pre-eminent, pure-play mobile game company.

Digital Chocolate obtained six new venture investors in this round, including Bridgescale Partners, Outlook Ventures, Montagu Newhall, DN Capital, Glynn Capital Management and WHI Capital. Also investing in this round are all the company's previous investors: Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sutter Hill Ventures and Chengwei Ventures. With this closing, Digital Chocolate has raised $43.8 million in cumulative capital.

"We strongly believe in the unique and promising IP position Digital Chocolate has carved out within the mobile gaming space. Original content always plays a critical role as new media industries mature and, as such, we are excited to lead Digital Chocolate's C round funding," said Matthew Cowan, co-founder of Bridgescale Partners.

"Since our inception, Digital Chocolate has focused on developing an extensive lineup of mobile content that is not only innovative, but also offers a high-quality, extremely satisfying mobile gaming experience. This focus has fed our impressive growth and helped us to reshape how the wireless content market perceives mobile gaming by delivering a wholly new experience for mobile phones," said Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO of Digital Chocolate. "This new financing round will allow us to fuel our expansion plan even further. The level of investment interest in this round, by first quality new and existing investors, further validates our differentiating strategy in mobile games".

About Digital Chocolate

Based in San Mateo, California and founded in December 2003 by software gaming pioneer Trip Hawkins, Digital Chocolate has established itself as the recognized leader in developing and publishing many of the world's most popular and top-rated games. The company has already earned eight Game of the Year Awards and 24 Editor's Awards by top gaming press. In 2006, it was named a Fierce 15 Company as an emerging wireless company for its innovation around community, networked and social games with products like award-winning MLSN Sports Picks. In 2005, it was named as an Always On 100 Top Private Company for "representing the tech sector's most innovative, disruptive, and exciting firms." Since its inception, Digital Chocolate has secured relationships with more than 250 operators and partners, including Cingular, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, 3, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone, and its products are available in over 70 countries around the world.

For more information, please visit www.digitalchocolate.com.

About Bridgescale Partners

Bridgescale Partners (www.bridgescale.com) is a Menlo Park, California based venture capital firm providing expansion capital to U.S.-based, later-stage technology companies. The founding team has more than 20 years of venture capital experience at leading early- and later-stage institutions and brings deep expertise in helping semiconductor, communication and Internet companies scale their businesses. Bridgescale invests in companies that are at a stage where they need expansion capital to "scale" their business and "bridge" them to an IPO or other strategic goal.

Source: prweb