San Francisco - Zynga, a developer of online casual games designed for play on social networking sites, has raised $10 million in its first round of funding, led by Union Square Ventures, The New York Times reported.

Other investors included Facebook board member Peter Thiel, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and former AOL COO Robert W. Pittman.

San Francisco-based Zynga was founded by Mark Pincus, whose past ventures include Support.com and Tribe.net.

The company offers online versions of games like blackjack and Texas hold 'em poker, and generic versions of classic board games like Risk and Boggle, that include interactive elements tailored for social networks such as Facebook or MySpace.

Zynga makes money from ads from other application developers, and hopes to expand to traditional advertisers in the future.

Related Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/technology/15facebook.html

http://www.zynga.com