Sulake Corporation Oy, an interactive company that specializes in online teen communities and games received, 18 million euros of new capital to support its strong growth. The investor that came in January was the American company Benchmark Capital.

Benchmark's injection of capital will make it possible to increase the growth of Sulake's main product, Habbo Hotel, more quickly abroad and develop the company's new product areas. Sulake has more than doubled its turnover every year since its establishment in 2000. In 2004 the turnover was about 13.8 million euros.

Habbo Hotel is a community on-line game world for young people. The game community, which opened in Finland in 2000, operates at this moment in 16 countries in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. To date 22 million Habbo characters have been created, with some 3 million different users visiting Habbo Hotel every month. In September Habbo Hotel was opened in the United States, where it has already collected more than 1.3 million registered Habbo characters.

Turning Habbo into a brand

In 2005 Sulake will be concentrating on developing Habbo Hotel further and opening up the service on the big markets in Asia, especially China and Korea. The strategic aim is to build Habbo into a new type of international youth brand which is anchored in the online community.

"The Habbo brand will also extend to include mobile games and content, animation series and merchandising products. We are also looking to broaden our product portfolio with other kinds of game and community concepts," says Timo Soininen, CEO of Sulake Corporation.

"International growth by Sulake and the Habbo brand has been impressive. Sulake is in a good position to become one of the leading players in the field," says Johan Brenner, General Partner of Benchmark Europe.

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There are more than 22 million Habbo characters around the world. The service has about 3 million different users a month.