Posts Tagged ‘gendai games’

The Austin Technology Incubator’s Influence Continues to Permeate the Austin Startup Scene

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

For the last 3 years, Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOm, has wrote about the up and coming Austin startups to watch for during SXSW and the Austin Startup Crawl. Of the list of 30 companies compiled in 2010, 2011 and 2012, 8 companies, notably more than 25 percent, are currently or have been connected in some way to the Austin Technology Incubator, a not-for-profit unit of the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin that harnesses business, government and academic resources to provide strategic counsel, operational guidance and infrastructure support to its member companies to help them transition from early stage ventures to successful technology businesses. Since its founding in 1989, ATI has worked with hundreds of companies, helping raise close to $1 Billion in investor capital.    

Here is the list of the ones to watch, a little background information and their connections to ATI:

Calxeda, a.k.a. Smooth-Stone, a successful ATI alumni company, offers a processor platform for hyperscale servers that will allow data centers to slash IT costs and energy consumption by as much as a factor of 10.  Calxeda, with its industry-disrupting ultra-low power processors powering servers and data centers, closed an impressive $48 million funding August 2010, and launch its first product with global impact via a partnership with Hewlett Packard November 2011.

GameSalad, a.k.a. Gendai Games, and successful alum of ATI, is an online community that empowers everyone to express and share their ideas through games. GameSalad provides a platform used by creators to rapidly design, publish and distribute original games that have been played by millions of people worldwide. It is currently the number one platform for iOS development and boasts 300,000 developers. 30,000 games have been built with the GameSalad Creator since its 2007 founding. Now at 60 employees and growing, all this was accomplished with just a little over $7 million funding since inception.

Ordoro participated in the SEAL program as UT Austin business students before joining ATI in 2010. Ordoro is a Web-based order and inventory manager. With just a login and a password, online retailers can use Ordoro to process orders, print shipping labels, drop-ship orders and track their real-time inventory at all times. Ordoro helps small and medium online retailers grow their business by spending less time processing orders, tracking inventory and dealing with confusing IT systems.

Ravel, an ATI member company, provides the tools to rapidly discover and integrate knowledge from disconnected data. Ravel’s KnowledgeStream and GoldenOrb products are used by company consultants and clients to acquire, transform, integrate, and utilize large data sets from enterprise databases and web sources.

Wheel InnovationZ, founded by serial entrepreneur Srini Gurrapu, CEO, and a new member of the Austin Technology Incubator, Wheel InnovationZ is privately funded, and still in stealth mode, with its 1.0 product in the hands of early adopter customers by summer 2012.  Wheel is building a Unified Application Store that helps enterprise manage the demands – and needs – of users accessing a variety of applications on a variety of devices.  Wheel will truly enable the ‘any app on any device’ vision with both local and cloud based access with a Unified Application Store enterprise management platform that reduces TCO, and improves security and productivity.

Hurricane Party, free mobile app that helps friends find, share, and create spontaneous parties; moving online experiences offline to make social networking more social, participated in ATI’s 3 Day Startup in 2010.

Macheen is a leading enabler of “Internet Included,” connected devices. Its multi-tenant cloud-based platform makes it easy to sell and market pre-connected devices that sustain profitable relationships with the consumers who buy them. Macheen enables new business models for device makers, retailers and network operators alike. Macheen CEO, Richard Schwartz, is on the Wireless Advisory Board formed in 2011, and was a featured speaker at ATI’s 2011 Texas Wireless Summit (TWS).

ATX Innovation, the company behind the TabbedOut app, participated in the ATI’s 2009 Wireless Seed Stage Forum (WSSF). The TabbedOut app is a secure and easy-to-use mobile payment solution that allows patrons to open, view and pay their tab with a smart phone, eliminating time waiting in line to close your tab and the need to even take your credit card out of your wallet, let alone give it to a stranger. TabbedOut is securely integrated directly into the merchant’s point of sale (POS) system.

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ATI-Alum GameSalad Raises $6.1 million from Investors in Second Round Funding

Monday, April 4th, 2011

 

In a March 31 article in the Austin American-Statesman, tech writer Lori Hawkins reported that Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) alum GameSalad, raised $6.1 million in its second round of funding from Steamboat Ventures (Disney’s investment arm); Greycroft Partners; DFJ Mercury; DFJ Frontier and ff Asset Management.

GameSalad uses the social web to allow members to design, publish and distribute original games without programming knowledge, and play with others across multiple platforms, such as the iPhone, iPad, Mac and any other Internet-connected device.

GameSalad, the largest third-party game development tool for Apple’s mobile platforms, offers its basic services for free and charges for a professional version. To date, GameSalad users have created over 4,500 games, including 30 games that have made it into the top 100 ranks of Apple’s U.S. App Store, which is quite impressive.

“We are focused on growing GameSalad into a world-class gaming company,” said CEO Steve Felter and Disney alum. “By making game creation accessible to anyone with a passion for games, we’ve empowered a new breed of game designers.”

GameSalad, who was founded in 2007 and joined ATI in 2009, raised $1.2 million from investors, including Steamboat Ventures, in its first round of funding last year.

For the full Statesman article read here.

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SXSW Day 5 – The cool moments of SXSW

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

The following is a post by Bart Bohn, Director of ATI’s IT & Wireless Incubators.

Today, there were two cool moments that typify the awesomeness of SXSW Interactive.  The first was a conversation relayed by a founder of a media startup.  He mentioned to a potential technology partner that his company wanted to become the “@%^%$# of media” and the technology partner responded with – “oh, wow.  The CTO of company @%^%$# stayed at my house this weekend and he is looking for a startup to engage with, I will make the introduction.”  Are you kidding me?  That is the serendipity of SXSW.  You have to have a very clear message going into SXSW and not be shy about sharing it with all the different kinds of people you meet because sooner or later, someone you talked with is BFF’s with the single person that is the exact right fit for your needs – whether it is a CTO, investor, co-founder, first customer, etc., that person is highly likely to be at SXSW.

The second moment was courtesy of GameSalad, formerly known as Gendai Games, which is a recent graduate of ATI. It was a year ago at SXSW that the urban legend of an investor writing a check on the spot after a demo actually happened to them.  That angel check eventually snow balled into their Series A round led by DFJ Mercury.  Since then, they have brought on a couple high-impact executives and are hitting performance numbers that are stunning.  At some point, the performance numbers will come out, and trust me, they are amazing.  This year at SXSW, they have a full fledged booth on the trade show floor and matching t-shirts.  They also hosted a party complete with three bands and drink tickets.  Talking with the co-founders at the party directly brought home why I love my job – I get to work with incredible individuals that are incredibly passionate and are doing incredible work.  The reward of sharing from the periphery in their success is a great feeling and I appreciate the GameSalad team for letting me come along for the ride.  I think this reward is the primary reason so many members of the Austin community are so generous with their time and thoughts – we at ATI certainly could not succeed without this generosity and hopefully all of those folks who have volunteered their time to a startup get to experience this kind of satisfaction.  More broadly, this is the rush of SXSW as there are teams all over the conference going through the same ride that GameSalad is on and the collective energy is infectious and invigorating.

I am looking forward to hearing about the next generation of GameSalad’s that “hit it big” at this year’s conference and tracking them as they ramp to next year.  Good luck.

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Statesman features ATI-member GameSalad for VC success

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Gendai LogoThe Austin-American Statesman‘s Sunday edition highlighted Austin-Technology-Incubator member company GameSalad, Inc., maker of the do-it-yourself iPhone game development platform that carries the same name. Tech writer Lori Hawkins featured GameSalad’s tough path to venture capital funds through the eyes of the company’s CEO, Tan Tran.

After getting accepted into the Austin Technology Incubator in the summer of 2009, GameSalad renewed its fundraising efforts.

It took another year, but in July, the company succeeded, receiving…read the rest of the article here.

Ned Hill, whose VC firm DFJ Mercury was a leading investor in GameSalad’s most recent round, also contributed to the article. DFJ Mercury offices in the Austin Technology Incubator. GameSalad, Inc., was formerly known as Gendai Games, Inc.


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Bootstrapping to Traction, Then VC Funding: The Case of Gendai Games

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Bart

The following post was written by Bart Bohn, Director of ATI-IT/Wireless

Many entrepreneurs come to ATI with a plan that requires VC funding from Day 1.  Unless you have done 5 startups—all VC funded with success—this is not realistic.  A very frequent early conversation we have with both companies applying to join ATI and newly admitted members is to restructure their initial funding plans to focus more on a bootstrapping approach, building towards a later VC round.  This echoes a recent conversation I had with Bijoy Goswami of Bootstrap Austin  about how bootstrapping and VC-driven approaches are not necessarily contradictory, but can instead be sequential.  This does not apply for many of the “heavy lift, hardcore IP companies” – e.g., clean energy, biosciences, telecommunications, etc., that need significant investment to even build a product, let alone enter the market.

The point was driven home by ATI member company Gendai Games announcing they raised over $1 million in funding from a great group of investors– this amazing syndicate was led by DFJ Mercury, wow!  What they did was bootstrap the company well past initial traction and then raised a Series-A.  Below is an illustrative chart (meaning I made up the figures, except for the 70,000 figure from the press release) based on the number of times GameSalad, their development platform, was downloaded:

Bohn Graph

As you can see, they raised money many months after they hit the traction inflection point.  The magic of web 2.0 startups is that they can launch a commercial solution with minimal capital AND survive the initial ramp.  The ability to survive the initial ramp is hugely valuable – they did not have to raise funds to float inventory or pay vendors or other up-front costs; instead, the revenue per customer covered the variable cost to serve the customer, which meant Gendai Games could spend the next “6 months” learning about the actual business and not product delivery.  The net is that when they eventually raised the Series-A, they had significantly more leverage, control, influence on participants, ability to retain executive roles, etc. than if they had taken the $1M on day one or just after the traction inflection point.  Furthermore, given the glut of super-angel, seed fund, and accelerator-funded companies, they also took the time to build a sustainable company that did not require them to raise funds in a very narrow window.  I am sure they prefer having a financial cushion and money to grow faster, but they bootstrapped themselves into a viable company – a tremendous feat of entrepreneurship.

At ATI, we frequently discuss with our member companies how to build a company in an intentional, controlled manner that constantly reduces risk and provides options.  The best way to do this is to build a sustainable underlying business which also tends to preserve room on the cap table and reduces dilution – and we believe this applies to web 2.0 and internet companies.  Congratulations to Michael, Tan and the entire Gendai Games team, your success thus far is well deserved and we are very proud and excited to have you part of the ATI family.

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Entrepreneur’s Lounge at SXSW Interactive – March 13, 2010

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The following post was written by Bart Bohn, ATI’s Wireless/IT Director.

bart bohn

During SXSW Interactive, Unwired Nation, the Austin Technology Incubator and Porter Novelli host the Entrepreneur Lounge.  It is the best networking at SXSWi and a great event.  We host it at the roof top deck of Fogo de Chao which is next door to the Austin Convention Center.  The meat and cheesy bread are legendary for attendees by now.  We invite entrepreneurs, investors, media, analysts and industry VIPs and expect about 250 people each night this year.  It runs nightly from Friday through Tuesday of SXSWi – yes, that means five nights of some of the best meat and drinks you can get in Austin.  Each night, I will provide a short recap capturing some of the highlights. Here’s what happened on March 13, 2010:

Celebrity Guest Host – Nova Spivak of Twine fame.

Seen and Heard –

  • At least once major VC putting the full court press on a company.  Multiple partners talking with the team most of the night – good luck guys!
  • Me getting interviewed by Bloomberg TV about startups outside of the Silicon Valley
  • Nokia giveaway and ability to really command the show – it still amazes me they were able to get the crowd to be quiet, wow.
  • Ethan Kurzweil of Bessemer Ventures (www.bvp.com) trying to be cool for a Bloomberg TV background shot – I really hope this makes the cut so I can use it for leverage later
  • The roof top deck got so crowded, there was a 75 person waiting line!
  • 8 PM – roof top still full even though the free drinks and food stopped over an hour earlier

Showcase Companies

  • Enthuze – customer relationship social network for major brands
  • Notice Technologies – platform for local advertisers to digitally reach their audience on social media, websites and mobile
  • eSee Technologies –  mobile augmented reality by leveraging location and web search via a mobile device
  • Spredfast – social media campaign management platform that allows an organization to manage, monitor, and measure its voice across multiple social media channels
  • BitVibe – marketplace for digital goods and is first focusing on the music sector.  Get to know the founders – one used to do stadium tours for several bands, great stories
  • Gendai Games – game development platform that lets the 99% of who do not code to build and publish games – fastest growing game development platform on the iPhone

Thanks to all who came and made this a great night.

Thank you to the sponsors – Nokia, City of Austin, LifeSize, CloudFlower, UKTI, KnowMore, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Digital Media Council, Bracewell & Giuliani, Texas Film Commission

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ATI Member Company, Gendai Games Announces Contest Finalists For MACWORLD EXPO 2010

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Austin, TX (PRWEB) February 10, 2010 — Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) member company, Gendai Games, the makers of GameSalad, an authoring tool created to support amateur and professional game development, has enlisted judges from the Mac and gaming communities to select five finalists for the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge. For the past five weeks, participants have submitted their GameSalad-created games in the GameSalad Challenge.

The games were reviewed by judges: Michael Agustin (Gendai Games), Jason Citron (Aurora Feint), Omaha Sternberg (iGame Radio), Zachary Waibel (Tricky Software), and Sean Vanaman (Telltale Games). Kill The King, Stunt Squirrels and Traffic Ninja can already be found on the iPhone App Store. All five finalists’ games are now at www.gamesalad.com/macworld.

“I was really impressed at the diversity present in the submissions for the GameSalad Challenge,” said judge Omaha Sternberg, producer of the iGame Radio Podcast. “There were some real creative ideas in game design, art, and sound. There are budding game developers growing in the GameSalad community.”

The team behind GameSalad is exhibiting at Macworld Expo this week in San Francisco. Attendees can stop by the GameSalad Bar at booth #1478 to play the finalists’ games, attend various training sessions on the GameSalad tool, learn additional tips and tricks, and participate in a daily mini-game jam on the show floor where the winner receives a GameSalad Express Membership as a prize. The winner of the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge will be announced during an award ceremony at the GameSalad booth on Saturday, February 13th. For a full list of GameSalad events at the Macworld Expo, please visit www.macworldexpo.com/ gamesalad.

“ATI is privileged to advise Gendai Games, which is rapidly building a disruptive force in the game development industry,” said Bart Bohn, Director of the IT and Wireless Incubators at ATI. “GameSalad is enabling tens of thousands of previously excluded game developers to thrive in a historically highly controlled gaming industry. The partnership with Macworld and resulting success of the GameSalad Challenge announces Gendai Games as a compelling new industry player and ATI looks forward to continuing our strategic relationship.”

About Gendai Games, Inc.:
Gendai Games (www.gendaigames.com) develops game creation technologies enabled by the social web. Gendai Games’ technologies provide powerful tools and processes ideal for the creation of sophisticated games and interactive media. The company pairs unique technology with social media to bring game creators and players together. Gendai Games is passionate about building great user experiences that are accessible to everyone.

Read more..

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Gendai Games on Austin StartUp

Friday, September 4th, 2009

New ATI Member company, Gendai Games, was recently mentioned on Austin Startup in a post called GameSalad Gears Up for iPhone Publishing System.  A copy of the original post is below.

GameSalad, an online community created to support amateur and professional game development, launched as an open beta application earlier this year is now preparing for the official release of its long awaited iPhone publishing system. In the next few weeks, Gendai Games will be launching a new service that allows games created with the free GameSalad Creator tool to be marketed and sold on the iPhone App Store.

GameSalad is an open platform that allows non-programmers to create games for the web, social networks like Facebook, and also for iPhone. The application is completely free to download from http://gamesalad.com. The social utility allows users to become game designers, creating their own unique games and offering the ability to connect and collaborate with other users. An innovative technology with a user-friendly interface, GameSalad gives would-be game designers access to complex algorithms necessary for implementing professional-level artificial intelligence and game play, without programming knowledge.

“We’re at an extremely exciting point in our company”, says Gendai Games CEO, Michael Agustin. “The number one feature that everyone has been clamoring for is an easy, more intuitive way to create a game for the iPhone. With GameSalad’s visual based logic system along with it’s drag-and-drop interface – we are poised to make that a reality.”

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