NaturalMotion Games has secured $11 million (£7 million) in Series B funding from Benchmark Capital to allow the Oxford-headquartered company to open new offices in California.

The social mobile gaming company is also set to use the fundraising to scale-up the business and ‘revolutionise’ its mobile technology.

Since its foundation in 2001 NaturalMotion has seen six of its social games reach the top ten on the Apple App Store globally and has had 30 million downloads of its games to date.

As part of the deal, Mitch Lasky, general partner at Benchmark Capital, will join the board of NaturalMotion. Lasky has experience in the industry having taken US publisher Jamdat onto the public markets in 2004 and then selling the business to Electronic Arts in 2006 for $680 million.

Benchmark Capital now sit alongside Balderton Captial as backers of NaturalMotion.

NaturalMotion CEO Torste Reil comments, ‘Just like animated movies have moved from Snow White to Toy Story, mobile games are moving from 2D farming games to high-quality 3D experiences.’

With the funding secured, NaturalMotion plans to open a new office in San Francisco, where it will sit alongside other gaming businesses such as Zynga, GREE and DeNA.

Benchmark’s Laskey, general partner at the firm, adds, ‘Tablets and mobile devices are on a collision course with traditional game consoles, not just for share of customers’ day, but also in terms of the quality of the interactive experience.’