6 Waves raises $17.5 million for Facebook publishing

Hong Kong-based developer 6 Waves has just raised $17.5 million from Insight Venture Partners. The company, which has only 18 employees, is one of the largest developers on Facebook.

According to AppData, 6 Waves ranks #6 by monthly average users, with 44 million. The company has moved away from simply being a developer and now offers a range of publisher-style services to third party developers and helping them with virality, retention and monetisation strategies.

Insight Venture Partners are not your average private equity firm. They tend to like companies that fly under the radar (they were the investors that put £30-odd million into Jagex, publishers of Runescape, in 2005). They tend to like profitable companies. And they are not averse to paying some, if not all, of their investment to the founders.

So it’s entirely possible that 6 Waves hasn’t raised $17.5 million. The founders may simply have pocketed it.

More information if I find it.