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August 27, 2007
Mojowatch: PlayerX,Crytek, Canonical and Digital Bridges
alarm:clock euro correspondent of the first hour, Valerie Thompson, put together a Euro startup headline newsmakers list, a Mojo list, this weekend.
Mojo Won
Player X, a mobile games and entertainment startup is in the news with a business model that apparently enabled it to grow sales by 179 percent last year last year, which put it in the top 5 category in a ranking of VC-backed ventures by researchers at Library House.
It was the only mobile entertainment company in the Top 20, said Library House, but online trade pub The Inquirer, which has covered the news from several ventures in the list, challenged that conclusion in its report on the Player X news.
It also pointed out that tech is still hot with VCs and not as out favour as the research firm had suggested.
The three year old mobile games aggregator and distributor was founded by a couple of former Digital Bridges (I-play) executives and is backed by a syndicate that includes Nordic Ventures and Arts Alliance.
View - Playerx
Read Player X in Top 5 fastest growing firms (the inquirer)
Read Interview with Tony Pearce, co-founder of Player X (GamesOnDeck)
Read a:c euro funding news post
Crytek is a bootstrapped ego-shooter games studio out of Germany and it is in the news because its founders told reporters that they will move the company elsewhere if government regulations on violence in games gets any tigher on title developers.
Crytek recently signed on with Electronic Arts for a new title with a rumored €16M budget. Its first hit game was Far Cry, which according to trade publication Heise.de, sold 2.5 million copies, at €45 euros each. But The Federal Department for 'Media Harmful to Young Persons' blacklisted the first Far Cry version and Crytek subsequently toned the game down. Heise also says that the Frankfurt-based company employs a staff of about 130 from 27 countries.
So far the three founding brothers have resisted investments from VCs and the like, revealed a Morgenpost interview. They've got their eye on being independant, an IPO is possiblity, but they also said that getting bought by EA wouldn't be bad either.
View - Crytek
Read - Heise.de: Largest German video games developer threatens to move (heise online)
Read - Spiele-Genies drohen mit Auswanderung (Berliner Morgenpost)
UK-bsed Canonical, which was set up to handle Ubuntu customer support deals with computer manufacturers, is in the news with complaints about the evidently closed BBC i-player, and news related to the announcement that Dell will sell in Europe Linux PCs supported by Canonical (yearly support contracts). The startup is led and backed by Mark Shuttleworth, the South African born, London-based entrepreneur.
Read - PC Manufacturers Embracing Linux, Sort of (daily tech)
View Shuttleworth's blog
Mojo Lost
Digital Bridges, a $100M M&A deal with Oberon was still not enough to make its investors wealthy, says the Scotsman. The early investors were 'hit' says the paper.
Read - Tycoons face big hit as games firm proves a bridge too far (The Scotsman)
Posted on August 27, 2007 06:26 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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