Jussi Laakkonen of Everyplay has compiled a very extensive list of investments to casual gaming startups in the US and Europe.

Laakkonen has compiled the list from public resources such as VentureBeat, TechCrunch, GigaOm, etc. He admits that there are possibly a lot of investments missing as they based on PR, which naturally works best in the US.

From the Nordics and Baltics, in the list are investments to Apaja Online Entertainment and Sulake, so I’m guessing there are many more smaller seed investments made to smaller Nordic and Baltic companies which aren’t present in the list.

What’s your take - is the casual gaming market the hottest corner of the internet industry at the moment?

Asmo Halinen, one of the original three Apaja founders, has just announced through Jaiku that he is looking for new challenges. In other words, he has (or will resign soon) from Apaja’s services.

Apaja Online Entertainment is focused on creating community gaming websites under the name of Playray. The Finnish service is called Aapeli and is one of the most popular entertainment sites in Finland.

Apaja has recently gone through quite a bit of transition in its managerial positions. Inka Mero was the CEO for some time, before she left for maternity leave. Tiina Zilliacus took over after Inka as Apaja continued to expand its services abroad to Turkey and Hungary, to name a few countries. A year ago, 1.75 million euros were invested into Apaja by Martin Trigon Venture Partners.

We’ll see if we can get a word from Asmo on the reasons behind the decision and what those new challenges might be for this online game & community services heavyweight.

Well, almost. In a press released yesterday, Apaja Online Entertainment announced that they will be launching a localised Belgian website of their Playray service with a partnership with Corelio and MTV Networks. At the moment their Belgian website is directing users to France or Netherlands, depending which language and social circle they enjoy more is asking users which language preference they enjoy (edited due to earlier mishap in the analysis - see comments).

According to Kim Lindholm, Business Development Director, the Belgian registrations in the French and Dutch services attracted so many Belgians that they had to build localised version of the service in Belgium. Despite being an area where languages mix with ease and people understand each other easily, there are a lot of differences between people in the BeNeLux countries and thus localising each service makes common sense in the long run.

A recent survey conducted in Playray revealed that the social aspects of the service are equally important to the casual games. This strengthens the latest understanding of the industry that social gaming is on the rise. Furthermore a third of new registrants are over 35 which also supports the broadening of the user base, in line with previous studies.

It remains to be seen how successful such a rapid expansion strategy is. Apaja’s 2007 financial figures are still unpublished in the public listings, but looking at the 2006 results the company ran a loss almost equal to its annual revenue.

Disclaimer: I am a former employee of Apaja Online Entertainment.

Last minute reminder to all those who are in the Helsinki region tonight; get yourself down to Dubrovnik, Eerikinkatu 11, at 6pm tonight.

The event is sponsored by Mysites.com and Floobs. On the panel we have Asmo Halinen from Apaja, Jani Penttinen from XIHA Ltd and Kristoffer Lawson from Scred.

We have about 70 people marked showing up through Open Coffee and Facebook. There are people I know are coming as well who haven’t signed up so it’s going to be a full house for sure!

Looking forwards to meeting everyone there tonight!

Mark the 8th of May down to your calendars - we’re hosting another meetup in Dubrovnik Lounge and Lobby to discuss social web applications. We will have a panel discussion with Asmo Halinen (from Apaja Online Entertainment), Jani Penttinen (XIHA Ltd) and Kristoffer Lawson (Fishpool Scred). These guys have first hand experience in running social web services, so don’t miss out!

Floobs has agreed to film the event and stream it online through their service so you’ll be able to tune in if you happen to be out of town (however, you’ll miss out on the excellent networking chances!).

See this page for more information and do leave your comments on the topics of discussion you’d like to hear!

Update: We’re having Jani Penttinen on the panel from XIHA instead of Juhani. Jani is one of the founders of XIHA Ltd. Also, Kristoffer Lawson will be replacing Matti from Fishpool.