WiL leads $50m round for Japan gaming start-up

According to a release, Gumi will use the extra capital to fund its global network. Gaming giant Sega Networks - which also took part in the round - is expected to aid this strategy by marketing the start-up's services in the US.

Gumi has so far raised around $94 million across numerous rounds. Its other investors include Incubate Fund, East Venture DBJ Capital, Nissei Capital, B Dash Ventures, Shinsei Bank and Jafco Ventures.

Set up in 2007, Gumi has developed mobile social games such as gangster-themed role-playing game (RPG) Yakuza Wars and Seishun Hime, where the player takes the role of a high school teacher in charge of an unruly class of girls.

The company - which is expected to go public later this year - already claims to control a large part of the rapidly-expanding Japanese mobile games market. In 2012, it ranked at the top of a Deloitte list of Japan's fastest-growing tech start-ups, with revenues expanding 3,950%.

WiL was co-founded by Gen Isayama, who previously worked at VC firm Doll Capital Management (DCM), alongside Shinichi Saito - former CEO of Cyber Agent Ventures - and Masataka Matsumoto, who co-founded PIM Corporation, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2000.

The firm currently manages a $300 million start-up fund that counts the government-backed Innovation Corporation Network of Japan (INCJ) among its investors.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Japan
• Venture
• World Innovation Lab (WiL)