Icelandic social gaming startup Teatime Games raises $9 million

Teatime Games, an Icelandic social gaming company, has raised a $7.5 million Series A funding round, along with a $1.6 million Seed round, both led by Index Ventures. The venture capital firm Atomico also participated in the Series A round. Guzman Diaz of Index Ventures, Mattias Ljungman of Atomico, and David Helgason, founder of Unity Technologies, joined the startup's board of directors.

“Games have always been an inherently social and multi-layer experience. Cards, board games, arcades, and consoles come to life through the interaction between people, opponents, and the audience,” said Thor Fridriksson, CEO, and co-founder of Teatime Games.

“The overwhelming majority of mobile games, however, are single player experiences, while most multiplayer mobile games are turn-based and are played against invisible opponents. We are building Teatime Games on the premise that mobile games players crave a more social and personalized experience than they are currently getting, where communicating with friends and fellow players in real time not only enhances a game but is as important as the game itself. That’s why we’re developing the first real time communication gaming platform for mobile.”

Teatime plans to use the investment to recruit software engineers and double its team in Iceland, and to further develop its platform.

“Like all the best games studios, Thor and the Teatime team have extraordinary pedigree in mobile games, accumulating years of experience of scaling up a gaming platform with over 100 million users," said Index Ventures investor Guzman Dias. "At Index we have been lucky enough to team up with games pioneers such as Supercell and King, and we believe Teatime have a similar size opportunity today – to lead the next wave in mobile games, by building the technology to spark a real time revolution in social games with the social element at its heart.”