PlayJam granted £500k in Govt funding drive

London social games outfit PlayJam has received a £538,000 government investment as part of a wider bid to help small and medium-sized businesses across the UK.

PlayJam, which develops and operates social games networks for TV, received the money as part of an angel investor round which raised £3.6 million in total.

Further details of the investment package were not disclosed.

The Business Angel Co Investment Fund is a government initiative to inject £50 million across various UK SMEs.

As much as £7.2 million has been distributed since the initiative launched in November last year, of which £1.4 million came from public funds with another £5.8 million committed by private investors.

“The investment in PlayJam from the Angel Co Investment Fund is welcome recognition that the government has a key role to play in galvanizing investment in UK SME’s during what is undoubtedly a difficult period,” said PlayJam CEO Jasper Smith.

“The fact that the majority of PlayJam’s funding to date has come from the US shows that the UK investment community still has some way to go in terms of supporting the businesses of tomorrow but such schemes will, I hope, highlight a strong case for supporting home-grown success stories such as PlayJam”.