GREE Looks North With Investment in Vancouver-Based IUGO Mobile Entertainment

Not long after investing in Tokyo-based game developers and HTML5 experts Wizcorp, Japanese social gaming company GREE (TYO:3632) has just announced a minority investment in Vancouver-based developer IUGO Mobile Entertainment.

According to the announcement, the partnership will mean that the two companies will be working closely on game development, taking advantage of IUGO’s three proprietary technologies: IUGO Games Library, IRender 3D Engine, and IUGO Mesh Social Game Engine. Hong-Yee Wong, the CEO of IUGO, commented on the partnership and what it means for the company:

Even though IUGO delivered our first game in 2003, I feel like we are just getting started because of the immense opportunities brought forward by the mobile lifestyle. Mobile gaming is soaring on a global scale, and our partnership will put us at the leading edge of this thrust."

In an interview with Business Insider yesterday, GREE’s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka noted that his company has invested in 10 companies in the Asia region, but that they “are definitely focused on the North America and Canada are for investments” saying that it’s a good opportunity.

GREE is making a push in the North American market via its new offices in San Francisco and its global gaming platform. So far we have seen a couple of titles, Zombie Jombie and Alien Farm, and we can expect to see many more as the year progresses.