Vostu receives US$ 30 million in investments
Valor Econômico
Considered the "Zynga of Brazil" - in reference to American developer of games for Facebook -, Vostu received an investment of US$ 30 million from the Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management funds. The investment evaluates the three-year old company at US$ 300 million, according to TechCrunch, a site specialized in technology. Despite being called "Zynga of Brazil", the only Brazilian thing Vostu has is the audience of its games. The New York-based company was created by Honduran Daniel Kafie. In an interview to Valor, Kafie says he has heard a lot about Brazil at Harvard University and decided to open a company to explore the opportunities arising from the growth of the country, and even moved here.
The original proposal of Vostu was to be a social network to compete with Google's Orkut. But between 2008 and 2009, the plans changed and the company turned towards the development of games for the Google relationship website. Today, six applications are actively played by 25 million users. The seventh will be released in the coming days. With offices in New York, Buenos Aires and São Paulo, Vostu has 260 employees. According to Kafie, a great part of the US$ 30 million injected by Accel and Tiger Global will be used to expand operation in Brazil.
The São Paulo offices, currently with 30 people, shall reach 60 in February. According to Kafie, the goal is to increase the development of games in the country, activity currently concentrated in Argentina. "The idea is to work more with advertisers on the advertising actions inside the games", says Kafie. Besides, it is in the plans the acquisition of small technology companies. The investment of the two companies represents the fourth round of investments received by Vostu. Since founded, in 2007, the company raised a total of US$ 50 million. One of the first bets was made by Intel Capital, the investment arm of the largest international maker of chips for computers.