My Business FD in Cambridge UK, which provides part-time finance directors to smaller and growing businesses, has helped a gaming company that bounced out of Cambridge Springboard last summer raise £500,000 to expand its business.

PlayMob has attracted worldwide interest in its innovative charity gaming concept which allows ‘ethical virtual goods’ to be incorporated into any existing game.

The technology can then be used to raise money for charity by gamers purchasing the virtual goods, with a percentage of the cost going to a dedicated good cause.

The new funding, which will be used to bring in further technical and business development staff and help fund expansion into the US towards the end of 2012, was secured with the help of My Business FD which provides PlayMob with its finance director, Tim Jakob, on a part-time basis.

Jakob has been providing strategic financial advice and practical support to PlayMob since January 2011 on a two to four-day-a-month basis. Earlier this year he also helped secure a further £125,000 capital injection which allowed the business to build the core of its innovative technology and test the market place.

Jude Ower, owner of PlayMob, said: “These are exciting times for PlayMob. Our product offering started life as part of our own ‘WeMonster’ social network game, along the same lines as the global phenomenon Farmville, where users could buy virtual goods to support re-forestation charity WeForest.

“The core technology behind WeMonster can be applied to any established game to provide a charity fundraising element. With the help of this new funding, we will be able to take the product to a much wider audience.”

Working in partnership with US games developer PerBlue and using PlayMob’s platform technology ‘GiverBoard’, the charity model has already been incorporated into the ‘Parallel Kingdom’ game, raising more than $3,000 in just four days for SOS Children, the world’s largest orphaned and abandoned children’s charity.

PlayMob is about to embark on its third campaign with PerBlue and has already run successful campaigns with Magicats, raising funds for Fauna and Flora International to help protect big cats; Soshi Games Music Festival, generating money for Water Aid, and Drop Catcher by Fat Bob Games, raising funds for the gamers charity Special Effect. A number of other campaigns are also in the pipeline for 2012.

Jude Ower added: “Tim Jakob’s work has been key to us securing the vital investment we needed to take our business forward. He has also got our finances into good shape and helped us to negotiate the minefield of financial rules and regulations. Knowing our finances are in safe hands has given us the confidence to concentrate on the business.”

PlayMob was established in 2007 as an ethical games developer, producing education, training and ‘awareness raising’ games. The firm started to make its own products last year but required investment to take the business to the next level.

My Business FD works with companies across most sectors operating at all stages of the business lifecycle, from start up to exit. Core services include business planning, improving cash flow and profit, securing finance, delivering acquisition strategies, managing growth, measuring business performance, managing third party relationships and improving systems and process efficiency.

Photo: Jude Ower, owner of PlayMob, with Tim Jakob of My Business FD