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Advergaming Studio Three Melons raises $600,000

Three Melons, an Argentina/US-based developer of short-session, branded online games, has secured $600,000 from Santander Bank. The 3-year old startup is in the business of creating casual Internet games , which they refer to as “engaging and socially empowered snacks of entertainment”, commissioned by media companies, advertisers / agencies and video game publishers.

Update: Three Melons says the funding came from Santander but also current partners and angel investors, and will be used for extending its product strategy and further growth in the Web and smartphone gaming market.

The company has built up quite an impressive customer reference list since it started out in late 2005, having created and distributed branded online games for companies like LEGO, Coca-Cola, Audi, Disney, Fox, AT&T, etc. Three Melons builds advergames based on Flash and Unity3D, and has set up proprietary multiplayer server infrastructure (Camarero) as well as a custom Flash game development framework (Daiquiri).

Casual online gaming sites and developers are a dime a dozen, but Three Melons seems to have carved out a nice niche for itself in creating short and great-looking advergames for top advertisers and media companies, and it's most likely going to use the extra cash to pursue more market share within that same target group.

(On a sidenote: I just wasted half an hour with the LEGO Indiana Jones game, in case you were looking for a recommendation on which to try first.)