UK game technology developer Turbulenz raises over $5 million

Turbulenz Limited, the developer of the Turbulenz online game creation and publishing platform, announced today that it has raised over $5 million in funding.

Turbulenz is a game creation and publishing platform that allows developers to rapidly create, publish and monetise a new generation of online browser games. Its mission is to empower game developers to create the world’s greatest online games. The funds will be invested in continued technology development and commercialization of the platform when it launches in 2011.

Turbulenz was founded in early 2009 by former directors and programmers from Electronic Arts and Criterion Software. Over the past six months Turbulenz has been quietly building one of the strongest technology teams in Europe with the recruitment of developers and business leaders from Apple, Sony, Google, Eidos and Square Enix amongst others.

Turbulenz founders (left to right), David Galeano, CTO, James Austin, CEO and Gavin Shields, COO. 

James Austin, Turbulenz CEO and former Director of Technology at EA, commented “We are thrilled to announce that we have raised these funds, which will allow us to continue expanding our development goals, enabling Turbulenz to power a new generation of online games.” Gavin Shields, Turbulenz COO, formerly a technology investor at $11 billion VC firm Summit Partners, added “Being able to raise these funds in this tough economic climate reflects the ambitious plans we have to transform the way games are created, distributed and played online. Our investors are fully behind our plans and we look forward to launching the Turbulenz platform in 2011.”

Turbulenz was founded with the aim of providing an end-to-end solution that allows developers to create a new generation of content for the web that can, with a single click, be published and monetised worldwide. Unlike the current generation of game middleware, this isn’t a technology that has been retro-fitted for the modern web.  Rather, Turbulenz has been designed from the ground up to embrace the web’s architecture and strengths. 

Turbulenz has recently moved its operations to the centre of Guildford, just outside London. The move secures Turbulenz’s location in the centre of UK game development for at least five years and will allow Turbulenz to further grow its development team as it looks towards its planned 2011 launch.