PeerPlay, a new mobile gaming company based in Tel Aviv, broke cover at our Pocket Gamer Connects live event in London today, following the completion of its pre-seed round.
Their vision? To revolutionize the casual gaming market through games that keep players engaged for years while focusing on crafting innovative monetization mechanics that enhance the casual gameplay experience, rather than detracting from it.
The company has been founded by industry veterans Yotam Pappo, Dor Michael, and Tal Shoham. Yotam Pappo, Co-Founder and CEO, brings years of experience to the table, having previously served as a Product Manager at Playtika as part of the Solitaire Grand Harvest team, and later as General Manager of Huuuge Games’ biggest casual game, Traffic Puzzle.
Dor Michael, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, brings a strong background in market research and product development, having spent four years at Moon Active where he worked as part of Coin Master’s monetization and product departments and later was leading the market research for Family Island.
Tal Shoham, Investor and Co-Founder, is an experienced executive and angel investor in tech companies, He was CRO and COO of ironSource mobile division, CMO at Huuuge games, an Angel investor for several tech companies, and a board member at Nexters (NASDAQ:GDEV).
PeerPlay is currently a growing team of 10, with offices in Tel Aviv and Kiev.
Successful pre-seed funding
The company has raised $5 million in its pre-seed round, led by vgames, the leading VC based in Tel-Aviv. Additional participation comes from Stardom Ventures and a number of leading angel investors in the gaming scene including Elad Kushnir (ex Playtika, Huuuge) which will also be serving as a Board member for PeerPlay.
The capital will be put into PeerPlay’s first game, a super innovative merge-2 game.
Yotam Pappo, CEO says, “Building games that captivate users for years is not becoming easier. I believe that there’s no way around building impeccably-executed games, games that not only innovate on game design but rest on an infrastructure that can truly sustain a great user experience. We all bring a wealth of experience from studios that managed to accomplish exactly that, and we’re excited and humbled that our vision of creating mass market casual games has enticed our investors as much as it entices us.”
Eitan Reisel, Founder and Managing Partner at vgames says, “We are super proud to back Tal, Dor and Yotam as they embark on their new venture. From the minute we met the team we knew they had the passion and understanding that is very unique. Building games became more and more challenging, users have continually raised their bar on the level of content and it takes so much to get something amazing out there. I’m confident the team has what it takes and can’t wait to play.”
