Free-to-play pioneers raise $2M for new mobile studio in Barcelona

Some Digital Chocolate veterans are going back for another scoop.

Omnidrone, a new Barcelona-based mobile developer, revealed this morning that it has raised $2 million in its first round of funding. Venture capital firms Nokia Growth Partners, London Venture Partners, and Kibo Ventures all participated in the round. NGP and LVP are both hip to the gaming scene. NGP has an investment in developer Grand Cru, while LVP holds interest in Clash of Clans studio Supercell, one of the most successful publishers in the multibillion dollar industry. Omnidrone has not yet released a game, but it plans to use this influx of cash to help finish up the development of its first title.

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“With the investment, we will make sure our first game makes its release date,” Omnidrone chief executive Gerard Fernandez told GamesBeat. “We have one game in our current production pipeline, and it is due out in a couple of months. Also, with the investment, we have plans to build a second team to start on a second product at the same time. We can also use the funding to help acquire new users.”

As CEO at this new company, Fernandez plans to draw on his experience working at the casual developer Digital Chocolate. In fact, Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen was Fernandez’s boss at that Digital Chocolate. Fernandez’s most well-known titles were the popular Facebook social games Millionaire City and Galaxy Life.

Fernandez won’t say much about Omnidrone’s first game except that it is a “mid-core” title with strategy elements.

“Gerard and his team built their first mobile games in the early 2000s and pioneered free-to-play games on Facebook. They have all the skills needed to build a portfolio of top-tier free-to-play mobile games”, NGP partner Walter Masalin said in a statement. “Games dominate the time spent on mobile, and we believe the strong industry momentum will continue.”

Fernandez and his team at Omnivore also want to establish Barcelona and Spain as a cradle for mobile-gaming development. The CEO told GamesBeat that he thinks his home city has the potential talent to take a spot as the second-largest cluster of game production in Europe after Scandinavia. Finland is the home of Supercell as well as the Angry Birds developer Rovio.

“Many successful games have been produced in and around Barcelona and Omnidrone’s team is the very elite of Barcelona’s game scene,” Kibo partner Javier Torremocha said.