Mobile game studio TinyCo lands $20M in funding

Weeks after Tap Resort studio TinyCo announced that it has laid off a portion of its staff in a bid to streamline its mobile game business, the company has revealed a $20 million round of financing. Led by Pinnacle Ventures, this round of funding (part debt investment) will help the studio to create deeper free-to-play mobile games, said TinyCo in a statement. Along with a previous round of funding, TinyCo has now received $38 million in financing rounds. The studio is now focusing on releasing new games for mobile in 2014. A spokesperson for the company told Gamasutra that this round of funding will not be used to hire back any of those staffers recently laid off, as the layoffs were not in response to finances. TinyCo's games have been downloaded 85 million times since the company launched its first title in 2010. Meanwhile, ArenaNet president and co-founder Mike O'Brien has joined TinyCo's board of directors. He was executive producer on Guild Wars, and part of the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo teams.