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Comunix, the maker of the hit game Pokerface, has raised $30 million in funding to reinvent social gaming experiences.
Pokerface is a Texas Hold’em mobile game with eight million downloads that lets people play while seeing each other on video chat. It has generated billions of minutes in video.
March Gaming led the round, and new investors participating include March Capital, Powerhouse, Woori Investments, and Altshuler Shaham. Existing investors include Kaedan Capital, Velo Partners, Mitch Garber, Shay Ben-Yitzhak, Eitan Reisel, and Baladi Ventures.
Mobile gaming represents one of the fastest-growing forms of digital entertainment, accounting for 52% of the global games market, which reached $175 billion in value in 2020 and which Newzoo predicted will surpass $200 billion in value by 2023. As mobile games continue to gain traction among new audiences, the industry is expected to reach $98 billion in revenue by 2024, according to Sensor Tower.
Above: Or Ben Shimon (left) and Idan Shriki are the founders of Comunix.
Image Credit: Comunix
Founded in 2018 and based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Comunix has 47 employees, up fivefold from a year ago. The company has raised $33 million to date.
Pokerface has experienced explosive revenue and user growth and now has over a million monthly active users worldwide, the company said. Pokerface users range in age from 25 to 40, and 31% of active users are women. Comunix will use its new funding to continue growing Pokerface, further expand its gaming platform, and aggressively hire talent across the company.
Above: Comunix’s team in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Image Credit: Comunix
In the past year, Comunix has raised its revenue by 12-fold and user base by ninefold over the last year, CEO Or Ben Shimon said in an email to GamesBeat.
“Comunix aims to reinvent the current gaming experience by integrating innovative methods for human communication, such as group video chat, to create a seamless social experience for users,” Ben Shimon said. “Our first game, Pokerface, is the world’s first mobile social poker game that allows friends from all over the world to play Texas Hold’em poker and connect via group video chat. The explosion in popularity of Pokerface, which has over one million monthly active users worldwide, is a testament to the strength of our team and our unique, community-centric approach to classic social gaming.”
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