Monetisation platform PlayHaven targets international growth with $8 million investment round

Mobile monetisation platform PlayHaven is looking to further boost its growth, announcing a C series round of $8 million.

The majority funder is GGV Capital, with its Chinese connections - thanks to investments in companies such as Alibaba and CocoaChina - proving particularly attractive.

It's also invested in US technology companies such as Square, Pandora and Wild Tangent.

"PlayHaven addresses a fundamental challenge in the mobile gaming industry, which is how developers and publishers transition their successful games into successful businesses," said Hany Nada, founding partner of GGV Capital, who will join the board of directors.

Existing investors Tandem Entrepreneurs, e.ventures, and individual investors participated too.

The round brings PlayHaven's total funding to $11.5 million.

Focusing on relationship management and monetisation - or as it calls its 'Zynga in a box' tools - PlayHaven enables developers to dynamically retail offers and deals to their players.

This results in higher retention, engagement and monetisation: companies such as Halfbrick, Sega, Glu, and Namco Bandai have integrated the platform into their games.

The company has over 3,000 games in its network, giving it a reach of 70 million monthly unique users and 1.5 billion monthly game sessions.

"PlayHaven's mission is to build the ultimate business engine for mobile games and give developers the power to maximise revenue with industry-leading user acquisition, engagement and monetisation solutions," said CEO Andy Yang.

"This new funding allows us to aggressively accelerate our growth in new markets and invest in product innovation, and we are thrilled to partner with GGV Capital as we build out a robust and global platform."

Based in San Francisco, PlayHaven has boomed in recent years; its headcount has grown from five in 2011 to 50, with this round of funding expected to take the company to 150 by the end of 2013.

"We're already run-rate positive, so this investment just allows us to expand faster, especially in terms of international growth," Yang explained.

PlayHaven already has an engineering office in Portland, Oregon, and is looking to opportunities in Canada and Europe. It's planning new sales offices to support expansion in Asia and Europe too.

"We're hiring across the board, across all functions, but engineers remain a challenge in the Bay Area," Yang says.

You can see PlayHaven's open positions here.