Social game maker Zynga has outed its minority investors, which stand to make some serious cash off the company’s upcoming $1 billion initial public offering, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Among the list of minority investors are search giant Google and Japan’s Softbank — two companies that invested more than $100 million each but were omitted in its first filing. Softbank invested around $150 million into the company to fuel its expansion in Japan. Also included in the newest list is super-angel and PayPal mafia godfather Peter Thiel, who also famously invested in social networking site Facebook.
Google invested $100 million. At the time, Zynga was suspected to be working on a social game for the company’s upcoming gaming network. That means social games might soon make their way to the company’s newest entry into the social networking space, Google+.
Zynga filed for an initial public offering earlier this month. It’s the most profitable Web 2.0 company to file for an IPO this year after making $90 million in 2010. The company made a net profit of $11.8 million in the first quarter this year, compared to $6.4 million in the first quarter of last year. Zynga has raised $845 million across three rounds of funding in four years.
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Zynga has since become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. That makes it a lot easier for Zynga to generate revenue, since a percentage of users usually pays for items in otherwise free games. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook.
Zynga’s latest social game, Empires & Allies, is another hit for the company. It attracted more players than Farmville, its first breakout hit, in just 25 days. Empires & Allies is gaining new users at a rate of a million a day and 8 million a week now, according to AppData.
The company is the fourth high-profile Web 2.0 company to file to go public in the past several months. Business social network LinkedIn also recently made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), soaring to a valuation of nearly $9 billion during its first day of trading before backpedaling to a $100 share price. Group-buying site Groupon also filed to go public earlier this month.
Here’s a list of the rest of Zynga’s minority investors not named in the company’s original S-1 filing:
Softbank
DAG Ventures
SB Asia-Pacific Investments
PG Ventures
Archimedes Capital
F&W Investments
Paul Martino
The D’Anconia Trust
Gary Leff
European Founders’ Fund
Morgan Stanley
Janus Twenty Fund
Fidelity Contrafund
T. Rowe Price
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