Marmalade Technologies raises $5M to introduce more developers to its game-making platform

It’s easier than ever to start making a game, and one of the companies responsible for this democratization of development is getting an influx of cash.

Marmalade Technologies has secured $5 million in funding. Investment firm Bloc Ventures led the round. Marmalade will use this money to bolster its game-development engine, which is also known as Marmalade. The company will focus on putting its tool in front of more game makers around the world. Marmalade also says that it will use this capital as a jumping off point to eventually reach an initial public offering at some point in the future. Gaming is a multibillion-dollar business, and companies like Unity and Epic make a lot of money from letting outside developers use their game engines. With gaming on iOS and Android reaching $30 billion in 2015, that is a market that could support an elegant, simple-to-use development tool like Marmalade that specializes in iOS, Android, and Windows Phone development.

Marmalade is clearly a powerful engine as developers have used it to make a number of high-profile mobile games. These include Cut the Rope (iOS/Android), Call of Duty: World at War — Zombies (iOS/Android), and SimCity BuildIt (iOS/Android). With that record behind it — and with the hopes of expanding to more developers around the globe — Marmalade could establish itself as one of the go-to tools for developers making their first or tenth game for mobile devices.

As part of this deal, Marmalade chief executive officer Harvey Elliott is stepping down from his position. The company’s board of directors has appointed Bruce Beckloff, managing partner at Bloc Ventures, as interim CEO. Beckloff has acted as chairman of Marmalade’s board of directors since February 2009.

“We are excited to have completed this round of financing,” Beckloff said in a canned statement. “We believe this well positions Marmalade for a public listing in the future as there is notable appetite for fast growing companies that significantly enable the mobile gaming space.”