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Ultizen Games Secures $6 Million in Series B Financing

2008-08-05 07:15:00

Ultizen Games Secures $6 Million in Series B Financing

— Funds Will Be Used

for Continued Rapid Expansion Through Acquisitions—

SHANGHAI, China & LOS ANGELES–(EMWNews)–Ultizen Games Ltd., a game development and outsourcing company,

announced today that it has secured $6 million USD in a Series B funding

round led by Taiwan-based venture capital firm PAC-LINK, with

participation from Japan-based VC firm Japan Asia Investment Co. (JAIC)

and CyberAgent, a leading on-line advertising agency and media

representative company. The Series B funding will be used to support

companys continued rapid growth through

acquisitions. Ultizens North American offices

are located in Los Angeles.

Ultizen closed a $1.5 million USD Series A round of financing from

Shanghai and Boston-based Dragonvest Partners in late June of 2007, and

grew from 70 to 350 employees within the companys

first year of operation.

With the largest talent base in China, reliable security to protect

client intellectual property (IP), excellent quality control and an

outstanding record of on-time delivery, Ultizen provides the highest

quality game art development outsourcing services to North American,

European and Japanese clients ranging from top

20 gaming and media companies to small and

mid-size studios.

Ultizen Games 350-person studio provides game

development services including game design, porting, programming and

art. A certified Microsoft XBOX Live Arcade game developer, the company

plans to launch its first title on the XBOX platform in the fall of 2008.

China has become the biggest game

development and art outsourcing market in recent years and we believe

the market will continue to grow exponentially in the near future. With

the advanced technology and more than 350 talented developers, Ultizen

has the potential to become the market leader in the industry,

said PAC-LINK General Partner Allen Hsu. In

addition, the web-based casual game industry has shown tremendous

growth. As an early mover in this segment, we believe that Ultizen will

become a dominant player and, moreover, have great potential to expand

from a developer into an influential publishing and operating company in

this segment.

Founded in January 2005 by gaming industry veterans Lan Haiwen and Wu

Jun, now Ultizens CEO and Vice President,

respectively, the company has achieved rapid success, and has grown to

be one of the top three independent game studios in China, both

organically and through the acquisition of Beijing-based Mo-Star

Limited, a well-established game content provider on China Mobiles

game portal platform. The company maintains studios in Shanghai and

Beijing, China and opened an office in Los Angeles in the fall of 2007.

Ultizens

leadership team, Lan Haiwen and Wu Jun, combines a deep knowledge of the

gaming industry and the Chinese game development market with a

sophisticated understanding of the needs of game development and media

companies around the globe, said Dragonvest

Partners Co-Founder and Co-Managing General Partner Jesse Parker. They

have done an outstanding job of attracting and retaining the top talent

needed to support rapid growth and address their clients skills and

resource requirements while maintaining a high quality standard.

Ming Hsu, General Partner, PAC-LINK and Tetsuya Tsuda, CEO of Japan Asia

Investment (China) Co., Ltd. will join Dragonvest Partners

Jesse Parker; Ultizen Vice President Wu Jun; and board chairman and

Ultizen CEO Lan Haiwen on the companys Board

of Directors.

Ultizens track

record of profitable growth is a validation of our capabilities and the

top- and bottom-line business benefit our clients derive from partnering

with us, said Lan Haiwen. The

addition of PAC-LINK, JAIC and Cyber Agent to our investment team

provides us with the resources to aggressively expand our leadership

position among China-based game development and outsourcing companies to

address the huge market opportunity the thriving global gaming industry

presents.

About Ultizen Games

Ultizen Games Ltd is a Shanghai-based game development outsourcer for

North American, European and Japanese companies, and the creator of the

U-Pal casual game platform for the Chinese market. The company was

founded in 2005 by a group of industry experts from Ubi Soft China,

Shanda and The 9. Ultizen Games 320-person

studio provides game development services including game design,

porting, programming and art. The company maintains studios in Shanghai

and Beijing, China and opened an office in Los Angeles in the fall of

2007. For more information, please visit www.ultizen.com.

About CyberAgent

CyberAgent, Inc. (TSE: 4751) is a leading on-line advertising agency and

media representative company. Established in 1998, and listed on the

Tokyo Mothers Exchange in 2000, the CyberAgent group is committed to

contributing to a new society through its work on the Internet, not only

in its fields of advertising and media, but through finding promising

new business and investing aggressively in developing new business.

About Dragonvest Partners

Dragonvest Partners is an early stage technology venture fund investing

in talented Chinese entrepreneurs who have started new enterprises in

Greater China. Based in Shanghai, PRC with a presence in Boston,

Massachusetts, USA, Dragonvest is dedicated to investing in early stage

emerging Chinese technology companies. Dragonvest’s unique advantage is

its bi-lingual, bi-cultural investment strategy which allows Chinese

technology companies to grow and emerge as global technology enterprises.

DVP targets early stage companies including “Sea Turtle” ethnic Chinese

returnees who have established emerging enterprises in China. Dragonvest

is on the leading edge of assisting promising entrepreneurs in growing

exciting companies dedicated to developing and marketing products both

for the Chinese domestic market and the global market.

About JAIC

The JAIC Group is committed to serving as a bridge between financial and

industrial capital as an independent venture capital firm and intends to

contribute to the creation of a new industrial structure by fostering

the development and growth of new business ventures and new industries.

In the area of venture capital investments, our core area of operations,

we will apply our sophisticated specialist knowledge and ample

experience to invest in privately held companies with growth prospects,

will foster and support investee companies to increase their corporate

value, and will seek to maximize capital gains and fund performance that

results from the IPOs of these companies and other exit strategies. JAICs

North American offices are located in Palo Alto, California.

About PAC-LINK

Founded in 1998, PAC-LINK has established itself as a professional

venture capital management firm. Up to now, PAC-LINK managed ten funds,

with a total fund size growing from US$30M to US$430M. Ever since its

establishment, PAC-LINK has invested and assisted over 160 portfolio

companies to grow their business. The portfolio covers a wide range of

industries, including auto, communication, semiconductor, optical

electronics, and life sciences, mostly in Asia and North America.

Boldbrook Marketing for Ultizen Games
Leslie Drohan,

508-836-4300
[email protected]
or
Neal

Stein, 321-253-8225
[email protected]

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Blake Masterson

Freelance Writer, Journalist and Father of 5

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