据《华尔街日报》报道，社交游戏开发商Zynga公司目前正与一些潜在投资者商讨关于最新一轮融资的合作事宜，据知情人透露，这轮融资额将达2.5亿美元，有可能让这家成立仅三年的新兴企业身价增至70亿到90亿美元。

游戏邦获悉，Zynga在去年4月的市值是40亿美元。Zynga的这轮新融资，再次让这家还未上市的新兴网络公司成为投资者关注的焦点。Facebook、Twitter和Groupon等企业最近都通过巨额融资推高了公司的市值，甚至有人认为Twitter微博服务的市场估值已达到80亿至100亿美元之间，而商务社交网站LinkedIn和网络广播服务公司Pandora Media最近也已准备上市。

知情人还表示，Zynga的这轮新融资有可能在数周内举行，也有可能不会发生。虽然Facebook等极为成功的新兴网络公司的市值已达500亿美元的天价，但Zynga最关心的还是继续挖掘社交游戏市场的营收潜力。

cityville

Zynga旗下的《FarmVille》和《CityVille》等知名社交游戏支持用户购买虚拟货币，并通过Facebook的病毒式传播效应，取得了巨大的成功。据AppData数据显示，《CityVille》目前月活跃用户已经达到9600万人，《FarmVille》则是5100万人。

Zynga游戏的月活跃用户总数已经达到2.75亿人，这让该公司在去年创造了将近8.5亿美元的营收，其中的利润高达4亿美元。不过Zynga发言人拒绝对这一情况做出回应。

目前Zynga的利润仍然很可观，拥有雄厚的战略基金，所以他们并不急于融资。不过据Zynga表示，该公司已通过一系列风险投资机构和投资公司融资3.6亿美元，这一数据并不包括搜索引擎巨头谷歌的投资金额。

Zynga现在正与至少一家主流银行及融资机构等商讨有关这一融资的事情，有许多潜在投资者对Zynga表现出了超乎寻常的兴趣，他们认为Zynga有可能在未来一两年中上市。据游戏邦所知，Zynga去年聘请了来自Allen & Co公司的投资银行家Dave Wehner担任首席财务官，这一举动被视为Zynga正为首次公开募股做准备。

不过据知情人所称，Zynga不太可能采用与高盛投资Facebook类似的方式，吸引海外投资者涌向这家社交游戏公司。游戏邦获悉，高盛今年1月份联手俄罗斯互联网投资公司Digital Sky Technologies向Facebook投入5亿美元，并由此募集到了额外的10亿美元资金。

不过高盛反对美国客户向Facebook投资，因为他们担心此举可能违反与股票私募配售有关的法律规定，虽然高盛投资Facebook一事成了业内热议的话题，但Zynga却并不十分看好这种途径。

Zynga有可能通过新一轮融资加快它的企业收购步伐，据称该公司过去九个月中平均每月收购一家企业，其中多为小型游戏开发商。Zynga的人员规模已从去年的800人增长至目前的1500人左右。

Zynga筹备新一轮融资的消息引发的另一个话题是，有许多投资者正跃跃欲试，希望通过二手市场获得该公司的股份。有些投资者会通过向一些有限责任公司投资，或者通过中间人介绍，从该公司现在或之前员工的手中购得一些股票。

位于旧金山的投资公司EB Exchange Funds总经理Larry Albukerk，曾经通过这种方式多次帮助投资者购得Facebook、LinkedIn和Twitter等热门互联网企业的股票，他主要负责与这些公司的员工取得联系，然后以中间人的身份促成他们与投资者之间的交易。

据Albukerk所称，他已经收到了超过100份的专业投资者及理财专家欲购买Zynga股票的请求，他认为Zynga是继Facebook之后最抢手的公司，“这种请求的狂热程度超过了去年的情况。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Zynga’s Talks With Investors Value Gaming Concern at Over $7 Billion

Social-gaming company Zynga Inc. is holding discussions with potential investors about raising around $250 million in new funding in a deal that could value the three-year-old start-up at between $7 billion and $9 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

In April Zynga filed papers authorizing the issuance of new stock that valued the company at about $4 billion.

The discussions are the latest sign of the investor frenzy around a small class of large, fast-growing Web start-ups focused on the consumer market that have yet to go public. Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and the group-buying service Groupon Inc. have all recently raised large rounds of funding at sky-high valuations, with some recent discussions concerning Twitter valuing the micro-blogging service at $8 billion to $10 billion. The business social network Linked In Corp. and Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc. recently filed to go public.

.Any decision to raise a fresh round of funding by San Francisco-based Zynga, which sells virtual goods in Facebook games, could be weeks away and may not happen, said the people familiar with the matter. Although valuations of the most successful Internet start-ups are getting pricey—topped by Facebook’s eye-popping $50 billion value in its latest round of funding—part of Zynga’s appeal is that it has tapped into a lucrative method of making money online.

The company makes an addictive array of games like FarmVille and CityVille in which people spend real money to buy virtual goods, such as seeds to produce crops in FarmVille and virtual cash to construct buildings in CityVille. Using the social connections people maintain on Facebook to spread virally, City Ville and Farmville now have 96 million and 51 million active monthly players, respectively, according to AppData.com, which tracks Facebook statistics.

The huge audience for its games—Zynga has a total of 275 million active monthly users across all its titles—helped Zynga generate about $400 million in profit last year on approximately $850 million in revenue, said another person familiar with its finances.A spokeswoman for Zynga declined to comment.

The company has no immediate need for financing because it is profitable and has raised a sizable war chest already, several people familiar with the matter said. Zynga has said it has raised $360 million from a range of venture-capital and other investment firms. That figure doesn’t include an undisclosed amount from search-giant Google Inc.

Zynga is in conversations with at least one major bank about raising financing, as well as mutual funds and others, according to people familiar with the matter.

According to a person familiar with the company, Zynga has been barraged with interest from potential investors, who view the company as a likely candidate to go public within the next one to two years.

Zynga last year hired investment banker Dave Wehner from Allen & Co. as its chief financial officer in a move that was seen as readying itself for an eventual initial public offering.

One financing method Zynga will likely avoid is a “special-purpose vehicle” akin to the one Goldman Sachs Group Inc. created to allow wealthy foreign clients to invest in Facebook during the

social-networking company’s recent round of financing. Goldman teamed up with Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies to invest $500 million in Facebook in January and raised an additional $1 billion through the special-purpose vehicle.

But Goldman decided against letting U.S. clients invest in Facebook because it feared it could run afoul of certain regulations relating to private placements of stock. The episode has soured people on structuring such deals, and Zynga isn’t seriously looking at that option, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Zynga could use any new financing to help fuel its torrid acquisition pace. The company has averaged one acquisition a month for the past nine months, most of them involving smaller game developers. The company hired more than 800 people last year and now has roughly 1,500 employees.

The heat around Zynga is creating a frenzy among investors who are trying to get a piece of the company in the private-company share market, otherwise known as the secondary market. Some

investors can purchase stock of private companies by investing in limited liability companies created to purchase such shares, or through deals brokered with current or former employees.

Larry Albukerk, the managing director of San Francisco-based investment firm EB Exchange Funds, has already brokered tens of millions of dollars of such deals for shares of hot private Internet start-ups such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. He finds employees who want to sell and then connects them to interested buyers, helping to negotiate the deal at an agreed-upon price.

Mr. Albukerk said he has gotten calls about Zynga lately from more than 100 wealth managers and professional investors. After Facebook, Mr. Albukerk said, Zynga is the hottest company. “Guys call me up and tell me just go out and get it,” he said. “The number of requests and activity is crazy compared to last year.”（source:online.wsj）