• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 14, 2009

Online gaming community Outspark On Tuesday closed an $8.3 million venture financing round led by new investor Syncom Venture Partners. Founded in early 2007, the San Francisco-based company plans to put the money toward internal growth, while eyeing potential acquisitions.

“We look forward to adding more developers around the world as well as media companies who want to jump start their mid-session games business,” Susan Choe, founder and CEO of Outspark, said with regard to potential deals.

Claiming to attract some 5.4 million unique visitors a month, Outspark currently offers five mid-casual “massively multiplayer online” games -- Secret of the Solstice, Bread ‘n Butter, Project Powder -- with more games launching through 2009.

Existing partners in the areas of online distribution and game development include BestBuy, Yahoo Games, YouTube, Xfire and Meebo.

Outspark recently opened its online platform for game developers or publishers to plug in and self-publish online games.

The online casual gaming category attracted 87 million U.S. visitors in May 2009 -- up a healthy 22% year-over-year, according to comScore. Yahoo Games ranked No. 1 in the category with 19.4 million visitors in May, representing a 6% increase over the past year, followed by the fast gaining EA Online with 18 million visitors -- up 34%. Nickelodeon Casual Games drew 14.8 million visitors in May, while the WildTangent Network attracted some 13.8 million visitors during the month.

A recent study from NeoEdge found that ads on casual gaming sites lift brand awareness.
According to the results, ads NeoEdge ran for Zappos resulted in 56% of users having a favorable impression of the brand while having a three to five times increase in awareness for Zappos new offerings in men's clothing.

In January 2008, Tencent Holdings, which operates a major Web portal in China, led a $11 million financing round for Outspark. Additional investors included SBI Investment and Mille Plateaux.