Jackpot! $15 million for Social Gaming Network

The Social Gaming Network, parent company of social-networking applications that do exactly what the name implies they would, has reason to celebrate.

The company has netted $15 million in first-round funding from Greylock Partners, the Founders Fund, Columbia Partners, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

Yes, that's $15 million for the people responsible for the Warbook, Jetman, and Super Snake applications clunking up your friends' Facebook profiles.

It makes sense. Gaming applications have proven to be some of the most popular apps on social-networking developer platforms like Facebook and MySpace.com, and veteran entrepreneurs have taken note. The Social Gaming Network was started by the founders of Webs.com--known in the Internet's earlier days as Freewebs--and Zynga, another well-funded gaming start-up created by Tribe.net founder Mark Pincus. Both companies have turned to independent developers too, encouraging them to work on games on their platforms-within-platforms.

The new funding will be used to "allocate even greater resources to research and development of its gaming platform, and produce more tools for social game developers who want to create a richer gaming experience on the social networks and the social Web," according to a statement. But it was also hinted that the cash will help the company add "more depth to its platform and diversity to its portfolio of games."

Considering the Social Gaming Network has made acquisitions in the past--snapping up Facebook applications such as Free Gifts--there will probably be more on the way.

Wonder if they'll make a play for Scrabulous.

[custompcmax]

Good for them. They are getting in on a market that is just blossoming and have some serious financial backing to do it. Hopefully we get some innovations. I don't think I have ever spent much time playing these "mini games" on peoples social network pages. Why bother... and you can't really tell how safe some of this stuff is. http://www.custompcmax.com