Angry Birds developer raises $42 million

Hardcore gamers can bemoan the success of Angry Birds all they want, but that hasn't stopped Finnish developer Rovio from securing $42M in investor capital during a recent funding round. (via Reuters)

Angry Birds

In addition to securing another heaping mountain of 'seed' money (excuse the pun), Rovio also announced the appointment of Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstroem to its board of directors. The latest round of funding was co-led by Accel Partners - who previously helped secure funding for companies like Facebook and Admob - and Rovio intends to use the new funding to leverage Angry Birds into a "fully fledged entertainment brand."

"This investment will give Rovio wings," Zennstroem said.

The company is hoping that Rovio's new wings - constructed from the fresh 42 million feathers - will help Angry Birds break the 100-million downloads mark. It seems a reasonable goal, considering that the game has already been downloaded more than seventy-five million times, and is played by forty million of those users on a monthly basis.