Vostu

Dan Kafie, Mario Schlosser, and Joshua Kushner co-found Vostu in San Francisco. Target: Portuguese and Spanish-language social games for Facebook's rapidly growing LatAm user base. General Atlantic leads early investment rounds. The timing is perfect — Facebook games are exploding globally and LatAm has no local competitor.

Vostu raises $36.5M total. 35 million registered users across Brazil and LatAm. Games include CityVille-style city builders and FarmVille-inspired farming titles in Portuguese and Spanish. Fastest-growing social gaming company in LatAm. Monthly active users rival mid-tier Zynga titles.

Zynga files $100M IP lawsuit alleging Vostu copied 12 titles: FarmVille, FrontierVille, CityVille, and others. Legal brief alleges virtually identical mechanics, art assets, and in some cases near-identical code. International media coverage. Vostu calls the lawsuit meritless but the reputational damage and legal costs begin immediately. Engineering team forced to re-architect games during lawsuit.

Vostu settles Zynga lawsuit — terms undisclosed, agrees to modify and retire infringing game elements. Settlement drains estimated $10M+ in legal fees and 18 months of executive bandwidth. Simultaneously, global Facebook gaming DAUs peak and mobile begins pulling users away from desktop social games. Vostu's user base declines 30% within 6 months of settlement.

Vostu ceases operations. Mobile gaming has fully replaced desktop social games globally. Dan Kafie pivots to other ventures. Mario Schlosser co-founds Oscar Health in 2012 (raises $1.5B+, NYSE IPO March 2021). Joshua Kushner builds Thrive Capital into a top-tier VC. Vostu's 35 million users and their city builders are gone — but two of its three founders build multi-billion-dollar companies from the ashes.