£760K WILL KEEP STRUGGLING MIND CANDY SWEET... FOR NOW

MIND Candy, maker of the children’s web game Moshi Monsters, has secured £760,000 in funding to stay afloat.

It’s the second bailout, having secured £1.2m to pay highinterest loans in April, when it also negotiated a two-year extension on a £6.5m loan from TriplePoint Capital.

The firm, founded by chairman and creative director Michael Acton Smith, pictured with a Moshi Monster, became one of Britain’s early tech risers after targeting young gamers.

Users play as monsters on the firm’s website and keep pets called Moshlings. They can connect with each other and chat on a forum. At its peak in 2012, the firm’s sales reached £47m.

But Moshi Monsters failed to generate enough cash after only a few users paid for it. The firm also failed to make a game for Apple devices until 2013.

It was forced to cut staff and sales slumped to £7.1m in 2015.

Chief executive Ian Chambers said it had raised enough from investors, including venture capital fund Accel and LocalGlobe, to keep it afloat for a few weeks, but it was likely to need more at the start of 2018.

However, high loan repayments almost forced Mind Candy to go out of business

By 2016, Moshi Monsters had more than 100million users in 150 countries

In 2008 it released Moshi Monsters, a gaming website for children aged five to six

Founder Michael Acton Smith – described as a ‘rock star Willy Wonka’ – set up Mind Candy in 2004