Akoha News
Akoha Raises $1.9 Million Financing from Angel Investors
MONTREAL, April 28 PRNewswire - Akoha, the developer of a new social game, announced today that it has received $1.9 million in financing from angel investors. The financing was delivered in two tranches, the first in early 2007 and the second in early 2008.
Akoha is developing a new type of social game inspired by elements of social entrepreneurship, massively-multiplayer and reality-based games. Akoha was founded by Austin Hill and Alex Eberts, long-time friends and entrepreneurs who first worked together when Hill co-founded Zero-Knowledge Systems (now Radialpoint) and Eberts served as its founding product manager.
Investors include some of Canada's most prominent business and technology leaders, including:
- David Chamandy, co-founder, Lavalife; - John Bromley, Benefic Group; - Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, entrepreneur-in-residence, Vantage Point Venture Partners; - Ron Dembo, founder, Zerofootprint.net and Algorithmics; - Jake Eberts, film producer; - Alan Gershenfeld, managing partner, E-Line Ventures, director at Games for Change; - John Meeks, managing partner, TA Associates Private Equity, London; - Reg Weiser, founder, Positron; - Jonathan Wener, Chairman & Founder, Canderel Group; - Robert Montgomery, founder, Achilles Media; - Chris Emergui, founder and president, BAM Strategy; - and Montreal Start Up, an angel investment fund with 20 Montreal-based investors and technology entrepreneurs as limited partners. Also investing were Austin Hill's Brudder Ventures and Alex Eberts.
To learn more about the angel investors participating in this round, visit http://akoha.org/blog/angels-financing.
Akoha CEO Austin Hill said: "We're delighted that our investors share our belief in bringing fresh ideas to the gaming world. The support of our incredible angels has allowed us to develop an innovative product and will support the company while we launch and build our player community into 2009."
Alan Gershenfeld, managing partner of E-Line Ventures, who for six years was senior vice president at Activision Studios, and is currently a director of Games for Change, said: "Games have an enormous and largely untapped potential for meaningful social impact. Based on my experience, I believe Akoha's approach and design will help them become one of the pioneers in this exciting new area."
Details regarding Akoha's project are not being disclosed until Akoha is available to the public in Fall 2008. Beta testers are invited to sign up at http://akoha.org/. For more information on Akoha and to track company news, please visit the Akoha blog at http://akoha.org/blog.
Akoha is presenting at the 2008 Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) conference in Toronto on April 29 and 30. Learn more about CIX at http://www.canadianinnovationexchange.com.
About Akoha
Akoha is developing a new type of social game inspired by elements of social entrepreneurship, massively multiplayer and reality-based games. The idea for Akoha came from a series of discussions resulting from the founders' attendance at the TED Conference in Monterey, where the theme was "Ideas Big Enough to Change the World," and the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where their friends were discussing movies that could make a difference. Their conversations about game design, social change and Internet trends led Hill and Eberts to ask the question, "What if playing a game could make the world a better place?"
Akoha co-founder Austin Hill was previously President of Zero-Knowledge Systems, where he helped the company raise $70 million in venture capital, grow to more than 200 employees and launch award-winning products in consumer and enterprise markets with partners such as IBM, Nokia and Hewlett Packard. Zero-Knowledge Systems was renamed Radialpoint in 2002 and is one of Canada's fastest growing software companies. Hill is a venture partner at iNovia Capital, a venture partner and board member of Montreal Start Up and a board member of Anges Quebec.
Akoha co-founder Alex Eberts served as Zero-Knowledge Systems' founding product manager and VP Development from 1998 to 2001, winning the coveted PC World "Most Promising Internet Newcomer of the Year award (2000)" for the pioneering Freedom security and privacy software. Eberts later founded Redwing Technology, where he performed software design and consulting for clients including MediaNet Systems, Precision H2, Openface Internet and Radialpoint, and worked as a videogame producer at Ubisoft where he led a team of sixty artists and engineers at developing an original Xbox 360 title.
For more information about Akoha, visit http://akoha.org.
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