Wedge Buster Secures $2.2m In Venture Funding And Launches Social & Mobile Sports Apps

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Wedge Buster, a new social sports gaming and mobile company, today announced its official launch as well as a Series A round of capital.  Investors include Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees, Pro Skater and entertainment mogul, Rob Dyrdek, 37 Technology Ventures as well as other prominent angels and leaders from the gaming and media industries.  Sports-focused investment bank, Park Lane invested in and acted as the financial advisor to Wedge Buster on this transaction.  The new capital will be used to accelerate game development, support marketing strategies and build out the distribution gaming network with media companies.

Wedge Buster is a social sports platform with more than 100 titles offering asynchronous gaming, which makes competing with friends easy, fun and addictive.  Its games target three very powerful demos:

• Fantasy sports players, which according to a recent Fast Company story is a market with 10% annual growth in the last five years and an estimated industry size of $1.7 billion by 2017
• Social gamers, which Lazard Capital says will be worth $9 billion globally by 2015 and will dominate the games industry
• Mobile gamers, which Jupiter Research predicted by 2015 revenues from mobile gaming would surpass $11 billion globally

The company is launching its games on Facebook, where it believes no one in sports is truly reaching the massive potential of the Facebook platform.  Wedge Buster's mobile offering is in late stage development, and the company sees its asynchronous style of games as the best way to quickly scale its games to this rapidly growing market. 

"I've been working in social gaming and fantasy sports for more than a decade and feel that the current model for sports gaming in social and mobile is broken," said Scott Philp, co-founder and CEO of Wedge Buster.  "These platforms offer enormous opportunities that aren't being maximized for sports. We are scaling sports games in a way that's never been done before – and we know to be the true leader in sports social gaming, we need a cross channel strategy that includes social, mobile and web."

"When I was first introduced to the guys at Wedge Buster, my mind was blown with their presentation discussing the endless possibilities of audience engagement through lightweight, social gaming," said serial entrepreneur, Rob Dyrdek. "Once I started to play, I was hooked.  It's why I invested and got involved.  More importantly, I can use Wedge Buster to build engaging games around my media properties since there are so many synergies between our target demographic."

In less than a year since inception, the company has acquired and developed more than 100 games in beta, with more on the horizon.  With limited marketing in an early alpha, the social app has registered more than 250k users, and users are spending an average of 13 minutes per session and coming back multiple times a day. With early success selling sponsorships to big brands, Wedge Buster plans to partner with leaders in sports media and gaming to push its games out over a broader network of channels.  A key revenue opportunity for Wedge Buster is driving in-game micro-transactions, but by targeting sports games it opens up significant sponsorship opportunities to reach the elusive male sports demographic in social and mobile.  Wedge Buster's games are unique in how the sponsorship aspect has been built into the platform, giving advertisers what they are accustomed to from the likes of FOX Sports, ESPN or Yahoo Sports. 

"Most of the major sports media companies haven't figured out a viable model for Facebook and mobile,  and the ones who have are all targeting the 40-year old female," said Ryan Houston, COO and co-founder of Wedge Buster. "We've been in testing mode for months and know we have the right product to reach males cross platform. This demo has limited options and limited time.  They want sports games that are fun, fast and with friends."  

Wedge Buster officially launched its games on Facebook today. For a chance to challenge your friends and play the most addictive sports games, visit: https://apps.facebook.com/wedgebuster

ABOUT WEDGE BUSTER
Founded in 2011 by a team of industry veterans from sports media, social gaming and fantasy sports, Wedge Buster develops and operates sports gaming applications for mobile and social networks.  The key focus of Wedge Buster's social gaming platform is head-to-head asynchronous competitions and challenges, incentivizing users to interact and compete in social and mobile games. 

Wedge Buster has acquired more than 100 of the leading sports games, and incorporates them into the first social gaming platform specifically developed for sports gamers.  For more information visit www.wedgebuster.com or play sports games on Facebook at https://apps.facebook.com/wedgebuster.

SOURCE Wedge Buster