Seasoned veteran of Internet industry Zhu Ming cofounded MorningTec, a licensed game distributor and mobile game development tool provider, with current CTO of the company Chen Wenqi in 2013. The company just secured 50 million yuan of Series A funding from Haitong Leading Capital Management.
The business model of MorningTec is to attract iOS-focused apps from European and the U.S. markets with its homegrown product Stella SDK II, a cross-platform mobile game development tool which helps developers to port an iOS app to an Android version. MorningTec will then operate these overseas licensed games in domestic market and share revenues with them.
This past Monday Zhu Ming shared with TechNode the difficulties and milestones of MorningTec in the past year. Zhu said that the first and foremost difficulty he encountered is the lack of talents, which in turn, makes it increasingly hard to make innovations, especially on technical levels. Moreover, it is difficult for MorningTec to enter the market, because companies that adopt similar operation models, like Chukong and iDreamsky, have established their presence in the industry. Fortunately, the growth potential of Chinese market is still huge.
He added that MorningTec is focused on standalone Internet casual games, a relatively untapped market. But this positioning also brought forth challenges, like more costs for cooperation with telecom carriers and different Android game distribution channels, as well as the needs for quick adaptation to their ever-upgrading SDKs. In addition, how to select games to the taste of Chinese gamers is also a challenging problem.
Zhu disclosed that the capital raised this time will be invested in team construction and game publication. MorningTec planned to expand its 30-member team to round 60 people in the future. In addition to an excellent technical team, the company also aims to set up business development groups for domestic and overseas markets respectively. Moreover, MorningTec planned to launch more online and offline activities to promote its games.
The company will make Stella SDK II a semi-open source service next year in a bid to lure more Object-C based mobile game developers to use the tool. Zhu mentioned that Chukong’s cross-platform development tool Cocos2d-X is designed to port Android apps to iOS version. The two services is in a complementary, rather than competitive relationship.
MorningTec will roll out one game each month in the new year, with Monster Shooter2: Back to Earth this month, a game developed by Poland team GameLion Studios, for this January. It has currently established partnership with more than 20 mobile game development teams from the U.S., Turkey, Thailand, Spain, and Chile. The company gives priorities to mobile games that are to the tastes of Chinese games, which feature beautiful pictures, interesting gameplay, and easy engagement.
In addition to Chinese mainland market, MorningTec also set eyes on Taiwan, Japanese and South Korean markets.
The company now mainly targets at game developers, because game apps are highly adaptive and have clearer monetization model. But Zhu said they may also expand businesses to develop other apps when market demands rise in the future.
As a serial entrepreneur, Zhu has previously founded Fenle Digital Tech in 2006 to 2010. Chen Wenqi, CTO and cofounder of the company, is also the inventor of Stella SDK II.
Founder and CEO of MorningTec: Zhu Ming
image credit: MorningTec