Mobile gaming startup BebopBee raises $4M to build puzzle game ‘Travel Crush’

© Provided by Geekwire BebopBee’s funding raise will go toward new hires, product reinvestment, and building out its internal teams. From left to right: Andrew Stalbow, an unidentified llama, CEO Rajeev Nagpal, and Tess Thormodsgaard. (BebopBee Image)

The developer behind the match-3 mobile game Travel Crush raised $4 million.

BebopBee is entirely focused on Travel Crush, a puzzle adventure and “forever franchise” that stars a girl named Ellie as she explores the world. Formerly known as What a Wonderful World, Travel Crush rotates its activities between global locations every month. Its next major event, the “Mayor’s League,” brings players to compete in Amsterdam for the first time.

Former employees at TinyCo, Zynga, and Jam City launched BebopBee in 2014. The company, which is remote but has offices in Seattle, plans to use the funding to reinvest in Travel Crush, its flagship product, and build out its data science and creative marketing teams.

The funding round includes contributions from Denver’s BITKRAFT Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Andover, and GOAL Ventures, with individual investments from Akin Babaygit, Affan Butt, and Charles Chapman. This is BITKRAFT’s second round of investment in BebopBee since 2021.

© Provided by Geekwire Developed in Seattle, Travel Crush brings players across the world to compete in match-3 puzzles and join an international community. (BeBopbee Press Image)

Travel Crush was recently updated to include several socially-oriented features aimed toward building a community around the game. This includes a team chat feature with real-time text translation and the inclusion of automatic conversational ice-breakers, with the stated aim of bringing its players together.

“With our community-first approach, we are relentlessly pursuing our vision of building billion-dollar IPs that delight our lovely players for decades to come,” said Rajeev Nagpal, BeBopbee’s CEO, in a statement.

In addition to the funding round, BebopBee announced the hiring of several new employees in key roles, all three of whom have moved over from Helsinki-based mobile-first game company Seriously (Best Fiends).

Tess Thormodsgaard is BebopBee’s new head of marketing; Robert Parviainen joins as BebopBee’s new vice president of data science; and Andrew Stalbow, the former co-founder and CEO of Seriously, has joined BebopBee as an advisor.