Game- Founders boots up

  • 2012-07-25
  • From wire reports

TALLINN - The first round of GameFounders’ gaming startup accelerator attracted a total of 122 gaming startups from 41 countries that want to participate in the three-month program in Tallinn, Enterprise Estonia said in a statement, reports LETA. “This is our first round; we aimed for a three digit number and are happy with the final result,” noted Kadri Ugand, co-founder of GameFounders.
“Our mentors were a tremendous help spreading the word and that is how we managed to cover so many countries,” Ugand said.

Most of the applications came from large gaming countries: the UK and USA as well as neighboring countries Lithuania and Latvia, that have no other such initiatives. Many exotic countries, like Kazakhstan, Kenya, Philippines and Kuwait were also represented. Applications were received from the following countries: UK, Estonia, USA, Lithuania, Argentina, France, Netherlands, Russia, Latvia, Romania, Denmark, Germany, Finland, India, Italy, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Hungary, Ireland, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Philippines, Kuwait, Belarus, Mexico, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine.

The applicants will go through many evaluation levels, including Skype interviews and mentor visits. Up to ten gaming startups will be selected by the beginning of August to participate in the GameFounders accelerator program. The startups will move to Tallinn, from September to November, and be coached by 60+ international gaming mentors.
GameFounders is the first business accelerator in Europe that is purely focused on gaming and gamified apps. The accelerator, co-financed by the Startup Estonia program, offers starting game companies startup capital in addition to high-level mentors, partnership deals and a global contact network.

“I am happy to see that so many gaming startups see the benefits of bootstrapping in Estonia,” Dmitri Burnashev, director of Business Start-Up’s Division of Enterprise Estonia, said about the accelerator.
The Startup Estonia program of Enterprise Estonia has been created to strengthen and develop the ecosystem of startup companies in Estonia. The Startup Estonia program is co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund.