Pixonic

Elena Masolova's project known in quality of the founder of discount service Darberry.ru — the Russian analog of the international Groupon. In the summer of 2010 of Darberry.ru it was sold to the same Groupon. And soon Pixonic appeared.

Pixonic not only publishes games (i.e. attracts users in already existing projects), but also is a producer, Masolova explained to Vedomosti: in particular, she "actively participates in development at all stages" with Alawar which there was not enough experiment by a part of social games.

Performance Indicators

Pixonic reached operational payback in 2010, Masolova says, and turnover of the company is measured by hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. "If by the end of the year turnover is less than several million dollars a month, I will deliver myself the two" — she smiles^[1].

For the end of May, 2011 the company released more than 30 games of 17 studios from seven countries, including the Russian Mail.ru Group and Alawar. The games Pixonic are available on 13 social networks, and the most popular the company calls the game "Brownies" which came out in 12 social networks. It was set by more than 6.5 million times, and the active day audience of a game approaches 1 million users.

History

• In December, 2010 the company opened the interface for third-party developers (application programming interface, API). The standard circuit of partnership with developers, according to Masolova, is as follows: the publisher buys traffic in social networks, the developer is spent for creation of a game, and net income from sale (less the commissions of social networks) are halved, as a rule.

• At the end of 2010 the company attracted the first $1 million. Then money was invested by Andrey Romanenko, the founder of a system of instant payments of Qiwi Ltd. and the co-investor of Addventure venture fund, one of partners of Pixonic told and confirmed to Romanenko. He says that he became interested in the potential scale of this business: "On social networks already one billion people, and, releasing a new game, you address all these people". Besides, Romanenko believed in the new project of Elena Masolova.

• On May 30, 2011 it became known that venture funds Ventech, Kite Ventures and TA Ventures invested $5 million in Pixonic. Pixonic promises to direct the attracted money to the edition of games on the largest social networks, in particular in Facebook (more than 700 million users)^[1].

$5 million — very noticeable amount for the Russian market of online games, the CEO of Alawar Alexander Lyskovsky considers. But for the company which is going to occupy a serious niche in this market it is adequate investments, it continues: publishers have big costs — and on advancing of developers, and on purchase of traffic in social networks.

Notes