Gendai Games, a startup that offers a simple game creation tool, has raised over $1 million in Series A funding led by DFJ Mercury with Steamboat Ventures, DFJ Frontier and ff Asset Management as well as angel investors Paul Bricault, Paige Craig, Tom McInerney, Josh Resnick and and Mark Suster participating in the round.
The game creation tool, called GameSalad, is allows non-programmers to build, develop and publish 2D casual games games for the iPhone and iPad. GameSalad has been downloaded more than 70,000 times and in the nine months since the launch of its iPhone publishing service, GameSalad has powered over 800 titles in the iTunes App Store including Asplosion! HD and Doodle Cannon.
The new funding will be used for product development and to hire additional talent. The startup faces competition from a number of other companies who also have democratized game development, including Playcrafter, and WIldpockets.
