MoMinis raises $4.5M to expand its mega portal on Android

MoMinis, an Israeli mobile game firm that has a mega portal on Android devices, has raised $4.5 million in a new round of venture funding from BRM Group and Mitsui Ventures.

In December, MoMinis launched PlayScape, a “Mega-Game” with 50 games inside one free Android app. PlayScape offers a uniform cross-game experience and allows you to carry experience points and virtual currency accumulated in one game to another. Users have downloaded more than 15 million games in the past three months.

The cross-game features encourage players to try out more games which helps developers with the critical problem of discovery. In the huge Android Market with hundreds of thousands of titles, it isn’t easy to get noticed. So developers could benefit from something like the MoMinis PlayScape Mega-Game. The app and the games are free, but users can pay for virtual goods within them. PlayScape has earned a rating of 4.7 out of 5 from more than 8,000 reviewers. The average session length is 25 minutes (compared to 8 minutes for all mobile games). MoMinis tracks more than 20 million users who play 60 million sessions per month and perform 2.5 billion actions.

Itzik Frid, chief executive of MoMinis, said, “We are happy to see that beyond its success in increasing user retention, distribution, and discoverability, it’s embraced by millions of users as an entertaining mobile experience.”

It’s akin to the old arcades where users bought tokens. They would play their favorite game, but then they would use the leftover tokens to try out something new. MoMinis previously raised $4.9 million from BRM Capital and Mitsui Ventures. It was founded in 2008 and has 25 employees. Rival publishers include Gameloft and Glu Mobile.

Rivals include Gree, DeNA/Ngmoco, iSwifter, and others making meta game layers. MoMinis also competes with GameSalad, Unity Technologies, and others making game development tools.

Founders include Tzach Hadar, chief technology officer and a former member of an intelligence unit of the Israeli Defense Force. Marketing chief Eyal Rabinovich is a seasoned engineer who previously worked at Hegde-Tech Financial Engineering and Lipman Electronic Engineering. Zvi Rabinovich, co-founder, is vice president of research and development. Aviv Revach is the company’s fourth co-founder.

“In a market where 99.99 percent of mobile apps languish and disappear, PlayScape offers a solution for mobile game developers, providing distribution and discoverability,” said Eran Barkat, Partner at BRM Group. “With 15 million downloads in three months, MoMinis’ platform is poised to become a market leader in this high growth market.”