French gaming startup Million Victories raises $3 million funding to diversify its portfolio

French mobile game development studio Million Victories has announced it has raised $3 million in a Series A investment round led by Griffin Gaming Partners, an American venture capital fund investing in the global growth of gaming.

Million Victories will use this funding to increase the studio’s headcount, scale it’s already quickly growing userbase, and develop new core mobile games to diversify its portfolio.

Based in Lyon, France, Million Victories is the development studio behind Million Lords, a multiplayer online strategy war game for mobile devices with more than 500,000 downloads and an average rating of 4.4 on the Apple App Store. The game’s DNA and positioning is unique in the segment of the 4X games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate).

Its seasonal calendar, its gameplay inspired by classic strategy games and its conquest system have earned the game a special place in the hearts of strategy players worldwide.

Million Lords currently has strong annual growth and high-level engagement from players who spend, on average, 90 minutes per day in the game. Million Lords has also demonstrated monetization results exceeding the segment’s average for comparable games.

The funding round allows for stronger investment in marketing and user acquisition, notably through the recruitment of a User Acquisition Manager. Million Victories aspires to make Million Lords an essential title in the strategy game category - a segment achieving revenues of over $1 billion dollars. Initially the studio aims to acquire new users across key markets including the United States, Europe and Asia.

Million Victories will also invest in improvements to provide an even better user experience through live competitive events, a new artistic direction, and deeper social integration features.

Benoît Ducrest, co-founder and CEO, Million Victories: “We appreciate Griffin Gaming Partners’ approach and their support during this round. It’s uncommon for an American venture capital fund to support a French company in our sector. It’s with great ambition that we start the next phase of our development, in France as well as in the United States.”

Griffin Gaming Partners is a leading venture capital firm singularly focused on investing in the global gaming market. They are founder-friendly, care deeply for the industry and bring decades of investment, advisory and operational experience. Griffin was founded by Peter Levin, Phil Sanderson and Nick Tuosto.

Pierre Planche, Partner, Griffin Gaming Partners:  “We are thrilled to partner closely with Million Victories; Benoît and the team understand what it takes to make a great mobile game and especially in the 4X strategy category. They have quickly proved industry leading metrics with Million Lords, and their roadmap ahead will provide additional exciting experiences for their current title and beyond.”

Million Victories is joined by two advisors for this round: Akin Babayigit, co-founder, COO and member of Tripledot Studios’ board, previously at King Digital Entertainment; and Hubert Thieblot, angel investor in the gaming sector as well as founder of Curse.com which was acquired by Amazon/Twitch.

www.millionvictories.com