Emergent Lands $12 Million Investment

Gamebryo and Elements suite developer Emergent Game Technologies has announced that it has secured $12 million in series D round funding, as well as made organizational changes and executive promotions, with which it will step up production of its "progressive development solutions." The company announced that Jerusalem Venture Partners and Worldview Technology Partners led the investment round with other investments coming from Adena Ventures, Walker Ventures, Copan, and Cisco Systems. In addition to the new investments, the company has announced a number of organizational changes and promotions, including a consolidation of its Research and Development staff, closing its Walnut Creek, CA studio and relocating staff to its larger center in Chapel Hill, NC. The new location will host Emergent’s Metrics, Server, and Online Tools Development teams. On the personnel side, former Mobility Entertainment CEO, Vivendi Games VP, and Universal Interactive CFO Scott Johnson has been promoted from executive vice president to president of the company. John Goodale, part of management consulting company Ages Entertainment has been given the title of vice president of marketing and business development, where the company says he will "guide Emergent’s global marketing efforts and to expand its presence in Asia." Lisa Wenniger has been named vice president of product management, and finally current VP of systems architecture David Gregory will assume the duties of former VP of engineering and systems architect Larry Mellon, who has resigned from the company. Emergent notes that Gregory spent 11 years at EA working on titles such as The Sims 2, The Sims Livin’ Large, The Sims House Party and Tiger Woods Golf. Said Gadi Tirosh of investment leader Jerusalem Venture Partners, “Emergent is driving strong sales growth around the world, and is intelligently growing its offerings to meet the needs of the game development industry. Emergent delivers what game developers and publishers need most: scalable, modular development solutions that allow them to minimize their financial risk while unleashing their creativity to make great games.”