Thursday, March 15, 2012

Avalon Ventures Might Reap Cash In Zynga Offering

San Diego-based Avalon Ventures, one of the venture capital investors in social gaming phenomenon Zynga, may be set to cash in on its shares of the newly public gaming firm, after Zynga said this week that it is planning a $400M, secondary offering of its stock. Zynga said earlier in the week that it hopes to sell the $400M in stock, all of which is coming from its current shareholders, and which will not benefit the firm itself. Zynga's major backers are Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, IVP, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Ventures, and Avalon Ventures. The S-1 filing from Zynga does not indicate how many shares the various shareholders plan to unload in the secondary offering, however, it's not uncommon for a company's original, private venture backers to seek rapid liquidity of their shares after a firm transitions to the public markets. Another, SoCal investors who might take advantage of the offering is Dreamwork's Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is also a major shareholder in Zynga. Zynga went public in December.