MindJolt Acquires SGN, Hallpass

Social gaming firm MindJolt has acquired mobile social developer SGN and online game portal Hallpass Media, each for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition effectively doubles MindJolt’s headcount to 80, gives it four million new users, and adds over 1500 new games to its network. MindJolt strengthens its mobile presence through SGN, whose apps like MiniTycoon Casino have been downloaded over 30 million times. MindJolt’s own mobile apps have also been downloaded over 30 million times. The Hallpass Media acquisition gives MindJolt access to a selection of valuable domain names including cookinggames.com, virtualpets.com, and dressup.com.

MindJolt is one of the most quietly successful social game firms on Facebook, with over $20 million per year in revenue and over 25 million monthly users through the Web. MindJolt’s Facebook app currently serves 6.8 million monthly active users according to AppData. MindJolt plans more acquisitions and according to the New York Times may be one of the potential bidders on News Corp’s MySpace network, which is currently looking for a buyer. MindJolt’s current CEO, Chris DeWolfe, is a former CEO of MySpace.

MindJolt plans to help Hallpass develop more original content for its gaming portal. Prior to its acquisition, Hallpass Media had raised $2 million in funding. SGN had raised over $17 million in funding from backers including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. MindJolt itself was acquired by DeWolfe last year. At the time of the SGN/Hallpass acquisition, MindJolt hosted about 1300 games on its network. MindJolt also has an ad offer monetization product involving virtual goods called AdJolt.

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