Greylock Partners Leads $5 Million Investment In Kongregate

Social Flash gaming portal Kongregate has announced that it has secured new investments of over $5 million led by Web 2.0 VC leader Greylock Partners, which it says it will use to fund a 'premium' development program to bring larger scale games to the site. Kongregate says that since it launched its beta in March 2007, it has seen some 1500 game submissions come in from 750 independent and small studio developers. It also notes that it has seen some 800,000 unique visitors per month. Venture Capital firm Greylock Partners has made a number of other investments in notable Web 2.0 companies in the past several years, including Digg, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Tying in with its recently launched Achievement and Reward systems, Kongregate says it hopes to fund and launch development of a half-dozen of the larger scale projects by the end of this year following the investment. Kongregate generates revenue through advertising and shares up to 50 percent of that with its developers. Kongregates's business model also allows full, exclusive rights to their game submissions. Said Greylock partner James Slavet, “Kongregate has great momentum thanks to addictive social and community features that let players show off their achievements in these games. Kongregate is quickly establishing itself as one of the most viable new social communities on the Web – and as the go-to site for the current generation of independent game developers.”