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Scopely, the Los Angeles mobile-game publisher, has raised $35 million in a new round of funding. The company will use the money to build out its vision for a mobile-first, “touch-screen entertainment network.”

The funding shows that investors are still bullish about mobile games. Market researcher Newzoo recently said it expects global mobile games to grow from $25 billion in revenue in 2014 to $30.3 billion in 2015, with the dollars eclipsing those generated by console games next year. That’s why you’re seeing deals like this, and it’s why Kentucky Derby owner Churchill Downs bought Big Fish Games, a casual mobile and online game publisher, for up to $885 million yesterday.

It’s a very large round compared to amounts raised by other game companies, but Scopely has figured out how to make casual mobile games go viral and hit No. 1 on the charts in downloads. Now it hopes to step up its search for better games, talent, and brands across the globe, said Walter Driver, the chief executive of Scopely, in an interview with GamesBeat.

“This is very exciting,” Driver said. “We see ourselves as the vanguard of a new form of entertainment. The round size reflects the belief [that] we can build a scalable business and make a large, meaningful company with our touch-screen entertainment network,” which means it can promote all sorts of games and entertainment to its network of 35 million mobile gamers.

Scopely makes its own casual games, but it also publishes content created by a small group of game developers that it views as elite teams. It publishes the games and works on optimization, distribution, player growth, retention, live operations, and monetization. These are the valuable things that a modern mobile-game publisher can do for developers.

Evolution Media Partners and Highland Capital Partners led the round. Evolution Media Partners is a joint venture of TPG Growth, Participant Media, and Evolution Media Capital. Highland partner Andy Hunt and Evolution Media Capital’s Rick Hess are joining Scopely’s board. Former AT&T CEO David Dorman’s Knoll Ventures participated in the financing alongside existing investors Greycroft, The Chernin Group, and Sands Capital Ventures.

Scopely is specializing in publishing games from smaller indie game developers. Those companies normally don’t have much of a chance against the likes of dominant mobile-game companies like Supercell, GungHo, and King. Scopely has launched four consecutive No. 1 hits in terms of downloads. Big hits include Disco Bees, Dice with Buddies, Mini Golf MatchUp, Slots Vacation, and Skee-Ball Arcade. One in 10 Americans with an iPhone have downloaded Mini Golf MatchUp.

Scopely doesn’t have a lot of games in the top-grossing lists, but Driver said that a lot of the games generate considerable advertising revenue that isn’t measured as well by others.

Driver said the company has doubled its revenue run rate in the past six months. It has added tens of millions of registered users to its network of cross-promoted titles as well. Driver said Scopely has formed new partnerships with developers who are capable of delivering great games across multiple genres, with both original and licensed properties.

Driver says his company finds promising young developers and works with them early on to design games so they can be hits.

As for the future, he said, “We’re going to see greater specialization as the market matures. Some publishers excel at performance marketing, global distribution, business development, and content development. It used to be all of the above, and now we’ll see more division of labor. At studios, we’ll see them focus on specific genres and developing expertise around them. The winners will identify new areas of consumer interest. The rewards are getting bigger, and the challenges are growing.”

Scopely was founded by Driver, Eytan Elbaz, Ankur Bulsara, and Eric Futoran in 2011. The company has 100 employees and 35 million downloads to date. Scopely has hired a number of senior executives and team leads from Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Gree, Kabam, Activision, and more.

“Scopely is in a unique position to emerge as a leading network for touch-screen entertainment,” said Hess at Evolution Media Capital, in a statement. “As we look at the new media space, Scopely stands out with its stellar team, successful games, and ability to bring hot entertainment franchises to mobile. We are thrilled to join their ride as they expand and flourish.”

Scopely is a next-generation mobile entertainment network founded in 2011 by social gaming entrepreneur, Walter Driver; former Applied Semantics co-founder, Eytan Elbaz; former lead software developer on MySpace’s Developer Platform,... read more »

Walter is the Co-Founder and CEO of Scopely and a longtime social gaming entrepreneur. Since founding Scopely in 2011, Walter has built the company from the ground up, amassing more than 40 million users and four consecutive #1 iPhone ... read more »

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The excitement behind Activision's Destiny has really ramped up since E3, and the demand to get on its Beta has been huge.   Now Bungie is letting any gamer play the upcoming blaster/MMO/RPG.......

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Destiny pulls together the best of gaming tradition to create something entirely new. Get used to it: you’re all going to be involved.

Activision knows what’s required to succeed in the modern premium games space, and it’s leading with an adventure the likes of which we have never seen before. Destiny is the real next-gen.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Destiny. Borderlands in space, most likely, as had been many others, but after playing the beta I think that’d be doing it a gross disservice. Destiny is both the present and the future of console gaming, a Theory of Everything which seeks to explain, finally, how existing genre strands are to be pulled together in this generation to create whole worlds derived from the best, refined elements of all gaming science.

Destiny’s triumph is its ambiguity. Despite best efforts to explain it away as just another shooter, or a shiny Halo, or a Guild Wars child, or Diablo, it is, in fact, none of these things because it’s all of them. It’s something else. It’s first-person and third-person; MMO and single-player; FPS, adventure and RPG. Bungie has coated Destiny’s confluence with a UI so slick you can barely see the joins, but there they all are. Destiny is new-gen.

The driving factor behind its progressiveness isn’t new console hardware, but rather the realities of the modern premium games market. Big games now need big life-spans, and Destiny is designed to be around forever, on every platform, and to keep you and your friends invested from the first day to the last. It has one of the best shooter mechanics ever created coupled with all the greatest elements from every other core genre. You can dance, just as you can in MMOs. You upgrade just as you do in RPGs, and, of course, you level. We have some top-end story-telling and what have to be the most incredible visuals ever seen on console. The skies alone are worth the purchase.

Destiny’s irrepressible modernity even renders that unnecessary: it’s free. You can play it now for nothing up to level eight. Destiny’s “beta” is a phenomenon, sucking up a large portion of our traffic in the last few weeks, and pointing to a steel-hard success for Activision later this year. Throw criticism at it all day if you must, but don’t believe you’re fooling anyone. You’re going to buy it because it’s going to be massive. And it’s going to be massive because it’s the most successful genre fusion yet seen, parceled in graphics so spectacular you’d have to employ climate change denial levels of obstinance to stay away. Everyone’s going to play it. That’s the point.

Because while there’s no obstacle to old-gen players getting on board in 2014, Destiny is going to be around for a long time. Whether you’re in now, or this Christmas, or next year, Destiny will be a next-gen pillar because it truly is a new concept. Destiny hasn’t abandoned the past, but it has moved beyond it, and your rendezvous with it is inevitable. Activision knows what’s required to succeed in the modern premium games space, and it’s leading with an adventure the likes of which we have never seen before. Destiny is the real next-gen.

Be sure to check out our Destiny beta guide to get all the info on the test’s secrets, classes, pastimes and more. Destiny releases for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 9.

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