Knock Knock has raised $4 million to develop “frictionless” games, or instant games that you can play on social media networks.
March Capital Partners led the round with participation from existing investors, including London Venture Partners, Raine Ventures, and Ludlow Ventures.
Gregory Milken, managing director at March Capital Partners, is also joining the board. Funding will be used to grow Knock Knock’s instant games portfolio, expand title availability to multiple new platforms including WeChat in China, and hire for development and user acquisition roles in San Francisco and Toronto.
“The games we launched in the summer of last year have seen some pretty good metrics,” said Andrew Friday, cofounder of Knock Knock, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We got 5 million installs, all organic, and we had 2 million installs in a week. And 75% of them came in from viral sharing between friends.”
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Messaging platforms have more than five billion monthly active users worldwide, and their popularity is driving massive adoption of frictionless apps like instant games. The Knock Knock executive team is comprised of industry veterans from leading gaming companies such as Zynga, Jam City, Glu Mobile, and Gameloft who believe that frictionless gaming, powered by instant install, can create new ways to connect with friends and play games.
With years of collective experience in social, online, mobile, and software development, Knock Knock is uniquely suited to drive the instant games market forward, building captivating, high-quality games and the platform for the future of social and frictionless gameplay.
Above: Knock Knock team
“Knock Knock is bringing innovation to the instant gaming market, creating experiences that integrate with social platforms where players spend the most time,” said Milken, in a statement. “Messaging apps have the highest engagement on smartphones, and it’s exciting to be involved with an early mover in the frictionless gaming market as it expands to Western markets, following the success seen in Asian markets. Knock Knock’s breadth of experience in the gaming industry has allowed them to create compelling games with depth that are currently lacking in the market.”
Friday said that frictionless games should take off even more with faster 5G wireless networks.
“There are 5 billion players on chat, and they spend a lot of time on chat talking to friends,” Friday said. “And so we want to build games that can kind of fit into that. We’re using this frictionless technology to design new kinds of games that people can share with friends. And what we’re seeing now is not only is this like a growth mechanic, but also influences how you design games. And so if you can design games around this, you can open up new opportunities to create compelling and fun experiences.”
Since the company’s inception in 2018, Knock Knock has launched two titles on the Facebook Instant Games platform, receiving over 5 million organic and viral installs. Their third title will be launching on multiple platforms this year, including WeChat’s Mini-Games and Facebook’s Instant Games. The company has raised $6 million to date.
36% of people in the U.S. reported that they had played instant games, according to the Manatt-Vorhaus Digital Strategy Study. Of those, 75% said they were satisfied. The study looked at 1,553 respondents in the U.S.
Above: Instant games satisfaction.
”What really stood out for us was the strength of their team, with deep domain expertise in the mobile and IM games space,” said David Gardner, general partner at LVP, in a statement. “Knock Knock’s fast and adaptive approach to development, alongside a continued focus on producing high-quality games, has paid dividends with early successes from their slate. We’re excited to back them once more as they expand their platform into Asia and beyond.”
58% of instant games players think that the frictionless nature of instant games is an advantage over mobile apps.
“Instant Games are the new big thing in gaming. Folks are playing these games on their computers and phones at an incredible rate,” said Mike Vorhaus, founder of Vorhaus Advisors, in a statement. “More than 20 billion game sessions have occurred in the last year. Consumers are really enjoying their instant games and I expect this to be a huge growth area in the year or two ahead. Eventually, the advertising dollars will follow the eyeballs. They always do.”
Knock Knock has offices in San Francisco and Toronto.
