Addmired Reveals New Name, Announces New Funding, Social Games Pioneer Shervin Pishevar Joins Board

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Machine Zone, Inc., the successful Silicon Valley mobile social games startup formerly known as Addmired, today announced a new name and new funding. Machine Zone has raised $8 million in Series B funding from Menlo Ventures, following a $5.3 million Series A investment from Anthos Capital and Baseline Ventures less than a year ago.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120327/SF77076LOGO)

In addition, Menlo Ventures' managing director and founder of Social Gaming Network (SGN), Shervin Pishevar, joins Machine Zone's board of directors along with Bryan Kelly, managing partner, Anthos Capital. Machine Zone launched in 2008 with Y Combinator funds and is rapidly becoming the leader in free-to-play mobile games with hit titles such as iMob 2, Original Gangstaz, and Global War, among others that continue to rank in the top slots on the App Store.

The company has continued to double its growth both in terms of engagement and its team every six months since its inception, and the continued growth means a larger team is needed. Machine Zone is looking to add talented and driven developers, designers, and engineers who are passionate about building unique, highly engaging mobile MMO games.

"Known as a smart investor and leader, Shervin Pishevar brings in-depth experience in quickly scaling hugely successful startups –- a tremendous asset to Machine Zone," explains Machine Zone CEO Gabriel Leydon. "The additional capital means we'll accelerate the growth of our products and platform, expand facilities, and ramp up our recruitment efforts. With new funding and a new board, we are ready to reveal our new name, Machine Zone, which better represents the intense, fully engaged experience our players have with our games."

With this funding round and the addition of top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to the board, Machine Zone will further accelerate its already huge growth trajectory by focusing on continuing to build award-winning, highly engaging community-driven social games in which players experience deep and long-lasting interactions and emotions via living and evolving games for three to five-plus years.

"Machine Zone is redefining the face of social mobile MMO games," said Shervin Pishevar, managing director, Menlo Ventures. "Gabe and his team have a deep and unique understanding of mobile social games leading to the highest levels of social connections and engagement of any mobile games company I have seen. It's why, after looking far and wide, this is my choice for a mobile social games investment."

Pishevar further explains that each of the Machine Zone games has well over one billion friendships among its players, with monthly gameplay time of several billion minutes and growing. "Machine Zone is also upping the ante by integrating new technologies such as their standard-setting, in-game chat system, which recently logged over 100,000 concurrent users - by far one of the most advanced chat systems on mobile. We're excited to be part of this team and help guide their fantastic growth."

Machine Zone is one of only two companies that have at least three games among the 50 top grossing games on the App Store. Its most recent success, iMob 2, has landed #2 among top free apps in the App Store, and joins two other company games in the top grossing apps.

About Machine Zone, Inc.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Machine Zone, Inc. (formerly Addmired) is focused on creating the most engaging free-to-play mobile social games in the world. Launched in 2008 with Y Combinator funds, Machine Zone has seen explosive annual growth with its highly successful free to play games, including iMob 2, iMob, Original Gangstaz, Global War, Race or Die, among others. To date, the company has achieved nearly 40 million downloads of their iPhone games. For more information, visit www.MachineZone.com.

About Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures provides capital for seed through growth technology companies in the consumer and enterprise sectors. For decades, the firm's market-driven research analysis has led to the identification of and successful exits in innovative technology markets. Notable research-areas of investment include Mobile (Siri, MobiTV, TeleNav), Enterprise storage (3Par), Communications (Acme Packet, Cavium Networks), and Consumer (Carbonite, Roku). Founded in 1976, Menlo's portfolio includes 70 public companies and more than 100 mergers and acquisitions. Throughout our history, Menlo's deep network of portfolio entrepreneurs, angels and advisors are a key resource made available to all of our family of investments. Menlo Ventures has $4 billion under management and is currently investing Menlo Ventures XI, a $400M fund with $20m allocated to our Menlo Talent Fund for fast seed funding. For more information, visit www.menlovc.com.

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SOURCE Machine Zone, Inc.