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The amount is the largest put into the industry since Singapore embarked on a drive to attract such digital media companies in 2000.
Rainbow, an Italian outfit with some ¥60 million (S$116.3 million) in worldwide sales annually, aims to create a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.
It will be based on its popular Winx Club franchise, which features fairies, witches and other inhabitants of a fantasy world similar to that of World of Warcraft, the genre's most popular title.
Chief executive officer Iginio Straffi said yesterday that the company aims to hire about 100 full-time workers, including animators, programmers and artists, by 2011.
The project will create work for another 200 people such as freelance artists and merchandising experts.
When released, the new game will be free to play and will generate money by charging players for upgrades.
If it does well, the company will consider setting up a studio here to create animation for television and even the big screen, Mr Straffi said.
Rainbow has 185 full-time employees at two Italian animation studios and also has offices in Germany.
Its Winx Club website has over two million registered users worldwide, including 100,000 from Singapore, and its animated cartoons are shown on cable television channels such as the Cartoon Network, which is available here.
Three other foreign companies have been creating games here.
Japanese studio Koei has invested about $3million since 2005 to develop its Romance of the Three Kingdoms title, launched recently.
German outfit Real U and Taiwan's SoftWorld are expected to release MMO titles within the next few years, said Economic Development Board (EDB) assistant managing director Manohar Khiatani.
The interactive digital media industry counts creating MMOs as one of its more profitable areas.
The Government has identified it as a key economic growth area, one it hopes will create 10,000 new, well-paying jobs by 2015.
To gear up for this, talent is being rapidly developed.
In September, the renowned US-based DigiPen Institute of Technology, whose programmes focus on teaching skills required to create video games, set up shop here and took in its first batch of 60 students.
As for local institutions, the National University of Singapore has set aside $11million to start an Interactive and Digital Media Institute, and the polytechnics also provide games-related courses.
Mr Straffi said the available talent pool was one of the main reasons why Rainbow decided to develop the game here. It already has a staff of 12 at its Smith Street office.
The company had considered alternative venues in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands before deciding on Singapore.
The Republic's good telecommunications infrastructure, strong intellectual property regime and government support helped swing the decision, he said.
And it did not hurt that Mr Straffi has a personal link to Singapore. His wife, Rainbow executive vice-president Joanne Lee, is Singaporean.
The EDB's Mr Khiatani said the company's arrival will create exciting job opportunities and have other advantages for Singapore.
'It will provide an essential avenue for us to nurture talent and push Singapore into the limelight in the field of animation and gaming,' he said.
