Casual mobile game developer TaleMonster Games has raised $7 million in funding.
This seed round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from a16z speedrun, Arcadia Gaming Partners, and Ludus Ventures.
TaleMonster says it wants to shake up the casual game market, which has become “too predictable, too optimised, and not enough fun,” CEO Irem Sumer told Venture Beat.
One of the studio’s beliefs is that the past decade of casual games has trained players into being more skilled overall. The goal, then, is to build games that match this updated audience profile.
TaleMonster’s first game is match-3 game Match Valley, which is available on Android and iOS. On Google Play, the game shows as having more than 5,000 downloads.
The team at TaleMonster brings years of collective experience from Toy Blast and Toon Blast developer Peak Games.
The funding round will help support Match Valley, as well as future games from the studio. It plans to use the funds on expanding its team, as well as developing “reusable systems” and working on efficient means of content delivery.
“Irem Sumer and the TaleMonster Games team are rethinking the genre with a fresh core loop and seriously sticky gameplay – early players are spending over 50 minutes a day on average,” said Ludus Ventures’ İsmet Gökşen in a LinkedIn post.