'AdVenture Capitalist!' There's a new iPhone game that lets you become a startup investor, and Apple keeps promoting it

AdVenture Capitalist

Plenty of iPhone games put you in the hot seat of cars and planes, but AdVenture Capitalist! wants to give players a window into the lives of some of the most important players in tech: venture capitalists.

Venture capital (VC) firms invest money in startups and tech companies they perceive to have a lot of potential, and then get that money back in the form of equity, or when one of their investments goes public or is acquired by another company.

Similarly, AdVenture Capitalist! tries to entice players with the allure of creating virtual wealth.

"You can't spell hedge fund without F-U-N," its App Store description says.

Players start out with a lemonade stand and can work their way up the corporate ladder by buying other businesses like pizza deliveries and movie studios. The game doesn't offer any tech startups to park your cash in, though.

If your businesses earn enough cash you can attract angel investors to boost your profits, like you would in the real world.

AdVenture Capitalist! released in January, according to App Annie, but the game's novel premise has received attention from Apple. It's been prominently featured on the iTunes and App Store home pages recently, and it has an average rating of 4.7 stars (out of 5). Some of the roughly 7,000 App Store reviews have called it "addicting," "more fun than I thought it would be," and "genius."

AdVenture Capitalist! is a free download, but be warned: there are in-app purchases for things like "gold bars," which help you progress through the game by helping you gain new investors, move forward in time, or buy a revenue multiplier.