Mirrorball Slots launches on Facebook
News on 23 Mar 2012
News on 23 Mar 2012
The latest contender to enter the increasingly crowded social gambling space is a new company titled Plumbee which has been founded by former EA Playfish execs with strong funding from the French venture capital house Idinvest Partners.
Plumbee defines itself as a specialist social casino game studio, and the company launched its first offering on Facebook Thursday, branded Mirrorball Slots.
Mirrorball Slots is now in open Beta mode on Facebook and features three unique new slot games, all with fairytale themes: Rapunzel’s Tower, Goldilocks and the Wild Bears and The Magic Mirror. More slots will be added soon, with Big Bad Wolf next in line, and additional themes will be introduced in the future. Additional social features, including Medals, Social Currency and Progressive Jackpots will be added in the coming days and weeks.
The Plumbee founders all worked together at EA Playfish: CEO Raf Keustermans served as Global Marketing Director, COO Gerald Tan was a Producer and CTO Jodi Moran headed up the tech team as Senior Director of Technology.
Plumbee currently has an international team of 20 in its London office, among them engineers, artists, community managers and marketers with industry expertise from companies like EA Playfish, Pogo.com, Nokia, Betfair, Bodog, Codemasters and Unibet. The company is also in the process of building an in-house mobile development team.
The start-up’s Advisory Board includes two former Playfish studio GMs: John Earner and Dan Fiden and former online gambling execs Ben Fried and Anton Bell (partners at gambling consulting firm Gaming Edge Associates and former Betfair managers).
Plumbee has raised $2.8 million from Paris-based Idinvest Partners. Guillaume Lautour, Partner at Idinvest said:
“We are strong believers in social games and specifically the remarkable growth in the social casino vertical has caught our attention. We’re very excited to back the Plumbee team, with its extensive experience and proven track record in both social games and online gambling.”
The company has also signed a long-term strategic partnership with Swedish specialist casino games developer Quickspin AB from Stockholm. Quickspin, founded by former veterans from NetEnt and Unibet will deliver content and consultancy services to Plumbee.
