Hardcore social game company Kabam has brought Steve Klei on board as chief financial officer. Klei formerly held that position at Jigsaw, where he led its acquisition by Salesforce.com for $175 million, so he’s got the experience necessary to help Kabam handle the $85 million in funding the company received in May.
Klei joins Kabam at an interesting time for the company. It signed a deal with Paramount Digital Entertainment last month to bring The Godfather movie franchise into the world of multiplayer social gaming, marking a big bet on licensed intellectual property. The Godfather: Five Families (pictured) is now in beta.
In May, Kabam closed $85 million in Series D funding, co-led by Google Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures with participation by Performance Equity and SK telecom ventures, as well as previous financial investors Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Intel Capital. That brought the company’s total funding to $125 and led to Google Ventures Partner Joe Kraus joining Kabam’s board of directors.
Kabam CEO and co-founder Kevin Chou said Klei’s appointment signaled Kabam was continuing its “aggressive” growth. “Steve Klei is a world class CFO, and adding his fiscal leadership will strengthen our executive team as we move our business to the next level,” Chou said. “Steve’s proven expertise leading corporate financial operations and scaling large, high growth companies from startup through IPO makes him the perfect fit for Kabam as we build and expand our operations.”
Under Klei’s guidance, Jigsaw more than tripled annual revenue and achieved one of the largest revenue multiples in the SaaS market. Before that he was CFO at enterprise email specialist Zantaz, and while there he led its sale to Autonomy Corp. for over $400 million. Similarly, in his previous role as founding CFO for ProBusiness Services, he led the IPO and the ultimate sale of the payroll company to ADP for over $500 million.
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