London social game studio Plumbee comes out of stealth, launches Mirrorball Slots on Facebook and announces $2.8M funding from Idinvest Partners.

Plumbee, a specialist social casino game studio founded by former EA Playfish execs, launched its first game on Facebook today. Mirrorball Slots is a AAA social casino game with truly global appeal and a strong emphasis on high production values and rich, story-led gameplay.

Winning team

The Plumbee founders all worked together at EA Playfish: CEO Raf Keustermans served as Global Marketing Director, COO Gerald Tan was a Producer and CTO Jodi Moran headed up the tech team as Senior Director of Technology.

Plumbee currently has an international team of 20 in its East London office, among them engineers, artists, community managers and marketers with industry expertise from companies like EA Playfish, Pogo.com, Nokia, Betfair, Bodog, Codemasters and Unibet. The company is also in the process of building an in-house mobile development team. Additionally, the ambitious startup has assembled an Advisory Board with some big names from the worlds of social gaming and online gambling: two former Playfish studio GMs: John Earner and Dan Fiden and former online gambling execs Ben Fried and Anton Bell (partners at gambling consulting firm Gaming Edge Associates and former Betfair execs).

Plumbee's CEO Raf Keustermans said: "I am thrilled to be working with a myriad of talented and passionate experts. With a world class team and the backing of numerous solid partners, I am convinced that Plumbee is in a great position to gun for a leadership position in the social casino arena."

$2.8M funding

Plumbee raised $2.8M from Paris-based Idinvest Partners. Guillaume Lautour, Partner at Idinvest: "We are strong believers in social games and specifically the remarkable growth in the social casino vertical has caught our attention. We're very excited to back the Plumbee team, with its extensive experience and proven track record in both social games and online gambling."

Quickspin AB partnership

Plumbee signed a long-term strategic partnership with Swedish specialist casino games developer Quickspin AB from Stockholm. Quickspin, founded by former veterans from NetEnt and Unibet will deliver content and consultancy to Plumbee.

Daniel Lindberg, CEO Quickspin: "We're incredibly excited about our partnership with Plumbee and the opportunity to deliver world-class video slots to a new Facebook audience. We strongly believe that combining best of breed casino and best of breed social will create a fun and compelling experience for Facebook players."

Mirrorball Slots

Plumbee's first game is Mirrorball Slots, which is currently in open Beta on Facebook. For launch, Mirrorball Slots features three unique new slot games, all with fairytale themes: Rapunzel's Tower, Goldilocks and the Wild Bears and The Magic Mirror. More slots will be added soon, with Big Bad Wolf next in line, and additional themes will be introduced in the future. Additional social features, including Medals, Social Currency and Progressive Jackpots will be added in the coming days and weeks. More info: https://apps.facebook.com/mirrorballslots and http://www.facebook.com/mirrorballslots

About Plumbee: Plumbee is a VC-backed social casino games studio based in London, UK. It develops and publishes free-to-play social casino games on social networks and mobile platforms. More information: www.plumbeegames.com

About Idinvest Partners:

Idinvest Partners (based in Paris, France) is a European private equity and venture capital investor, managing more than EURO3 billion. The firm was part of Allianz until 2010 and became independent with the backing of IDI Group. Having funded more than 100 startups from seed to late stage since 1999 (like Criteo, Meetic, Dailymotion, Deezer, Viadeo, Talend), Idinvest Partners is also active in the online gaming space with companies like Kobojo (social), Pretty Simple (social), Plumbee (social), eRepublik Labs (MMO), Grand Cru (MMO), Mediastay (game monetization), Winamax (poker), Zeturf (horse betting), Curse (MMO community portal). For more information, see http://www.idinvest.com/en/