Angry Birds Creator Rovio Eyes Themed Parks, Merchandise Empire

Finnish games developer Rovio Mobile, the company behind “Angry Birds,” has raised $42 million in its first round of funding with Atomico Ventures, run by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, and venture capital groups Accel Partners and Felicis Ventures.

With huge game sales, expanding ancillary products and a movie coming up, the Finnish company continues its massive push.

Angry Birds are aiming to create their own mini versions of the Happiest Place on Earth.

Rovio, the Finnish gaming company behind the mobile app game that has become a multi-billion dollar industry, is planning on creating themed activity parks in the United Kingdom and pushing an expansion of its retail offerings in the United States, Reuters reports. The parks would be like branded playgrounds outfitted with arcade games, as well.

The game, an addictive drag and shoot experience that fires different colored birds at evil, egg-stealing pigs, has been downloaded more than 700 million times on mobile and Facebook platforms since its 2009 launch. Already, Rovio has licensed stuffed animals bearing the birds' faces, clothing, toys and other apparel; the company's revenues hit around $100 million in 2011. They are planning a potential IPO in Hong Kong in the next few years.

That could expand rapidly in the coming years; the company will produce a major motion picture based on the game, and introduce more games, both new versions of Angry Birds and other entirely different apps.

"When I look a few years ahead to when we market the Angry Birds film, there’s huge potential," Rovio exec David Maisel told The Hollywood Reporter in October. "Marketing in movies hasn’t really changed that much in the past twenty years. It’s still focuses a significant spend on TV in the three weeks before the film opens and still focuses a relatively small amount online. We can do so much innovative stuff in marketing our film through our own platform directly to our fans. That’s going to be pretty exciting.