Vostu Harvests Funds from Facebook, Zynga Backers
Some well-known investors are placing a bet that Brazil is fertile territory for the spread of social games.
Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management are investing $30 million in Vostu, a startup that has grown quickly in Brazil with a collection of games that have spread through Orkut, a Google-owned social networking site that’s popular in Latin America’s biggest Internet market. Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel and Facebook board member, will join Vostu’s board of directors.
Vostu has become to Brazil what Zynga, the creator of the inescapable Farmville game on Facebook, is to the U.S. market. Vostu’s biggest game is Mini Fazenda, a Farmville-like game that lets players cultivate virtual crops. The company makes money by charging people to buy virtual goods, like tractors and other items, which help their farms thrive.
“Vostu is profitable and well-capitalized and continues to grow at an extraordinary pace,” says the company’s CEO Daniel Kafie, who cofounded Vostu with two classmates from Harvard University, Joshua Kushner and Mario Schlosser.
