Canadian games firm, Beanbag, seeks USD8m to expand

Canadian games developer, Beanbag Studios, is looking to receive between USD6m and USD8m from investors in the New Year, in a bid to expand the company. According to the London Free Press, based in London, Ontario, the firm is working with the London Economic Development Corp to attract new investors from across the local area. The firm plans to use new funds to grow the firm's workforce and develop new titles for the quickly expanding casual games sector. It also seeks to branch into mobile games and games for other handheld platforms.

Beanbag wants to hire more games programmers, artists and testers, expanding its workforce to 100. It aims to buy the rights to develop games for entertainment properties, owned by major media brands such as MGM, CBS and NBC. It is also looking to branch out and sell other software.

Beanbag was started by Steve Bergenholtz, who previously founded Sandbox Studios- a games studio which was acquired by games giants Electronic Arts. It has recently produced a number of games based on the 'For Dummies...' guide books and is due to release a number of games based on old TV series including 'The Three Stooges' and 'The Honeymooners'. According to research released this month by Understanding & Solutions, the mobile games market will generate revenues of USD6bn worldwide by 2011, up from USD3.6bn in 2007.