Casual gaming leviathan PopCap Games announced that it has lined up an extra $22.5 million in funding from sources including investment firm Meritech Capital Partners and private investors Larry Bowman and John McCaw.

"While other video game companies put out more flops than hits, PopCap has never produced a game that wasn't a critical and commercial success," said Meritech's managing director, Rob Ward. "Taking the company's boutique development style and universally appealing product lineup to the top of the video game food chain will be an exciting, potentially industry-changing, experience and we're happy to be a part of it."

Well, okay, so we know why the investors did it -- guaranteed returns. But why does PopCap, to whom we have all handed money over the years, need extra money? PopCap CEO David Roberts claims that the investment "lets us be more aggressive with our expansion into social media and reaching new geographies," but we've heard that PopCap is researching an unstable form of the match-three puzzle that can currently only be created in a laboratory, and only for a few nanoseconds.