OREANDA-NEWS. Mail.Ru Games Ventures, specialized gaming investment division Mail.Ru Group, has announced the first deal. Seed investment in the amount of 800 thousand euros allocated for the Russian-Finnish developer Panzerdog. The funding will allow the team to complete the development of mobile Tacticool shooter.

Earlier Panzerdog attracted pre-seed investment from a Finnish family Fund Aii Capital, one of the owners who is a senior Advisor to the President of Fund "SKOLKOVO", the founder of "Startup tour" and "Startup Village" Pekka Viljakainen. Aii Capital it has helped to develop Tacticool in the early stages of development. The result Panzerdog created a competitive third person shooter where gamers fight 5x5, and the session lasts only 1 minute. The game combines the fighting with the use of technology, and without it. Now Panzerdog conducts closed beta testing Tacticool for IOS and Android. Soft-launch of the game scheduled for November 2017.

Received from Mail.Ru Games Ventures funding will allow Panzerdog terminate Tacticool and subsequently enter the international market. In addition, the investment division will provide the partner with expert support, access to resources and technology companies — everything you need Panzerdog for the further successful development of Tacticool.

"Mail.Ru Games Ventures — one of the few investors who not only Fund development, but also provide expert support at all stages of project development. This allows you to create games faster than the team would have done it yourself. We are pleased to be the first partner MRGV. This collaboration will allow us to offer players a whole new experience on mobile shooter," said Alexey Sazonov, General Director Panzerdog.

"Today, mobile games is one of the main drivers of the gaming industry. With the development of mobile phone developers have more opportunities to experiment and to offer users a new gaming experience. Mail.Ru Games Ventures is looking for bold and ambitious ideas around the world. We have reviewed over 500 applications and we are happy that our first partner was Panzerdog. The team develops interesting and promising project. I hope that our cooperation will allow to create qualitative and interesting for the global market game," commented Ilya Karpinsky, Director Mail.Ru Games Ventures.

Mail.Ru Group announced the creation of a specialized investment division Mail.Ru Games Ventures in the spring of 2017. This initiative aims to support the most ambitious teams around the world. One of the priority directions of work of the new unit steel mobile game. This segment is one of the fastest growing in the market. So, in 2016, according Mail.Ru Group, the proportion of "gamers" in the market volume in Russia increased to 29%, while revenue growth was 54%.

The playing area Mail.Ru Group is a leader in the Eastern European market of online entertainment and the largest local publisher of mobile and multiplayer client games in Russia and abroad. The company's portfolio includes games such as Warface, Armored Warfare, Skyforge, Perfect World, etc. the total audience of projects is more than 100 million users worldwide. In 2016, revenue from MMO games on a comparable basis grew by 21.2% compared to the previous year and reached 11 of 390 million rubles.