Flash-based MMO Glitch Developer Tiny Speck Raises $5M

Independent Flash-based MMO developer Tiny Speck, founded by creators of popular photo sharing site Flickr, has raised $5 million in series A funding for its upcoming browser-based online game Glitch. Founded by Stewart Butterfield and Cal Henderson, Tiny Speck is primarily staffed by a small team of developers in San Francisco and Vancouver. The company announced its plans earlier this year, and hopes to release its debut 2D sidescrolling game in late 2010. Adding to its initial $1.5 million in funding, Tiny Speck's latest round was led by venture capital funds Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, according to a GigaOM report. Along with its investment, Accel will add its own Andrew Braccia to the developer's board of directors. Butterfield told GigaOM that his company plans to use the new capital to bolster its activity in both of Tiny Speck's locations, as its Vancouver office concentrates on the creative side of the game and San Francisco focus on the technical side. Glitch has been described by its creators as a "massively-multiplayer game playable in the browser and built in the spirit of the web." It allows the player to explore "the minds of eleven great giants walking sacred paths on a barren asteroid who sing and think and hum the world into existence."