Tag: Gaming

MADMONQ, a company that created the first health and performance gaming supplement with extraordinary nutritional benefits specifically tailored for gamers’ needs, has today announced a €500,000 seed round with participation from poker star, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier; popular Twitch streamer, Lex Veldhuis; popular content creator, entrepreneur, and author Radek “sterakdary” Starý; top-level manager Lukáš “lastgameblitz” Křítek, AdRock Ventures; and entrepreneur Vojta Roček. The funding will be used to raise awareness around the need to prioritize health in gaming, new product development, scaling the team, and paving the way for Series A round, planned for late 2021.

Founded in 2017, MADMONQ is on a mission to make sure every gamer gives health the same amount of attention they give to their hardware setup by 2030. The MADMONQ® flagship product is a chewable tablet that packs organic caffeine, tea extracts, non-essential amino acids, adaptogenic herbs, and other nutrient-dense ingredients like Spectra which packs nutrients from 29 herbs, plants, and fruits. The supplement provides better immediate performance benefits in terms of focus, energy, and reaction time; boosts long-term health by supporting memory, eye health, and metabolism; and provides a better ability to adapt to stress.

As a successfully bootstrapped company, MADMONQ achieved seven-figure revenue in 2020 and has been profitable since its inception.

“At MADMONQ, we envision a world where health and performance is a priority—not an afterthought. Although the supplement market alone is worth at least $100BN+, esports players and gamers are largely neglected and have yet received nutritional supplements tailored to meet their unique needs. Gaming is a grueling and physically demanding activity and, like traditional athletes, gamers need fuel that supports endurance, mental clarity, and overall health. With this funding, we can continue providing supplements with world-renowned ingredients while also helping gamers to develop habits, tools, and routines that will level up their performance,” commented Michal Noga, MADMONQ Founder and CEO.

“MADMONQ has incredible brand loyalty, with the most passionate gamers even tattooing the logo on their bodies. Their unconventional approach to making health a priority in the industry is unlike anything I have ever seen. This combined with the fact that the company has already proven itself to be profitable made investing an easy decision,” commented Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.

The Warsaw-based start-up wants to be the go-to platform for all streamers to grow and monetise their passion and for brands to work with streamers to reach Gen Z viewers

Live streaming sponsorships platform inSTREAMLY has raised a €1.1m seed round led by Supernode Global to expand into new markets.

Founded in 2019 by a team of live streaming and marketing professionals, inSTREAMLY has built a platform that enables all streamers – regardless of size – access to brands and to participate and execute sponsorships.

Colopl Next and PKO TFI were also involved in the investment round and previous pre-seed investment was secured from SMOK VC, which is run by Paul Bragiel, an investor in Niantic (PokemonGO), Unity, Uber, and Stripe.

The global live streaming market is valued at $70bn and expected to rise to $184.27bn by 2027. It is extremely difficult to execute brand sponsorship deals for the live streaming market, so typically only the largest streamers with millions of followers are able to work with large brands, leaving the majority of streamers without access to brand deals. With inSTREAMLY’S technology and platform, all streamers gain access to deals previously reserved for the top 0.01% and brands are able to access a large and highly engaged community of micro-streamers, delivering the same amount of impressions, but much better conversion rates than with larger streamers.

While the industry average CTR for paid ads is 0,7%, a recent campaign with 956 streamers achieved a 4% CTR, demonstrating that smaller streamers are able to draw more engagement, which brands such as Netflix, Samsung, PlayStation, Adidas, and Reebok, among others, are capturing through inSTREAMLY’s platform.

“I personally know how life-changing it can be for a small streamer to get their first revenue from streaming. It makes you believe that you can turn your passion into a career. With the new funds, we will be accelerating our expansion to new markets and aim to deliver the best opportunities to streamers worldwide,” says Wiktoria Wójcik, co-founder, inSTREAMLY.

“We see massive potential in how inSTREAMLY is democratising sponsorship opportunities for the live streaming ecosystem and believe the team’s deep understanding of the market and passion for streaming will be a key component to their success. We’re incredibly excited to lead this round and look forward to supporting inSTREAMLY as they expand their platform into new markets.” – says Phoebe Arkell, Supernode Global.

“Media agencies and large brands are currently facing difficulties in building a sales message that would be engaging for the Generation Z. inSTREAMLY fills this gap. The value of the Company is built for all current shareholders, and we believe it will be a part of inSTREAMLY global success.” – Krzysztof Tokarski, Managing Director at PKO VC.

The Gaming industry had a blast in 2020, growing 12% in revenue. This is a stark contrast to many other economic sectors that shrank during the global health crisis. What’s more important, this boost is predicted to continue its effect in 2021. This rapid growth has pushed many gaming companies to transform and implement innovative technologies, to keep up with the trends. It was projected that automation of the internal processes, use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, etc. will be a huge part of the gaming landscape in 2021.

As a digital transformation provider, MaxBill constantly analyzes the state of innovation in the fields relevant to our clients and partners. We believe that deep understanding not only of our client’s business, but industry as a whole, is necessary for developing the best and most fitting solution. In particular, it is crucial to get a better understanding of where the majority of the companies stand after the pandemic.

Right now MaxBill conveys a short and fully anonymous survey that will give us valuable insight into the current state of the gaming industry. We expect to get valuable data for analysis during the next 4-5 weeks. Shortly after we plan to distribute the resulting report along with corresponding recommendations, so that all interested companies would get an idea of where the industry realistically is.

All professionals belonging to the gaming sector in any capacity are welcome to participate in this research: it is free and anonymous.

If you are curious to see what the report might look like, you can check out similar research that was conducted for the utility industry. Keep in mind, however, that each sector has its specifics, so the resulting documents can differ accordingly.

Fishkeeper is the newly announced game from the Blinkclick Games studio from Poland. It can be referred to as “Sims in an aquarium” or “Underwater Tamagotchi”. The announced title will be a unique mix of economic strategy and aquarium simulator in full 3D.

In the game, we will play the role of a hobbyist looking after an aquarium: we will buy our own tank, equipment and in real time we will take care of the fish, satisfying their various needs, depending on the species. As in other life simulators, we will have to ensure that the fish we care for are fed, safe, healthy, and even that they do not lack good company. There are also more complicated parameters to deal with: water pH, salinity level, temperature and tank contamination.

The future game offers a whole range of freshwater and saltwater aquarium fish, shrimps, snails, plants and corals, allowing you to fully recreate the ecosystem of an artificial reservoir. Each animal and plant species will vary not only in appearance but also in terms of the conditions of the aquarium: eating, space and the specificity of reproduction. Just as in real life, all organisms will interact with each other in a specific way and will influence their environment. The game contains recreated mechanisms that naturally occur in nature among the different species of organisms. The player’s task will be to maintain a natural balance in the tank, fostering the development of the ecosystem and preventing environmental disasters.

By caring for fish and other animals, we will achieve the gradual development of the biosystem — the organisms grow and reproduce, passing the stages of life from egg to fry to a fully developed adult. In time, we will be able to start selling fish to free up space in the aquarium and at the same time raise funds for further development. The rarest and most beautiful specimens can be sold at auction, bringing the biggest earnings.

We will be able to admire our created aquarium by cruising in a specially designed bathyscaphe — something that can be described as a water drone. You can customize your bathyscaphe by changing its appearance, color, battery capacity, speed, replacing parts and adding modules. This device will also allow us to record films, take photos, clean the aquarium and perform other tasks to help in keeping the biosystem working.
Main features of the game:
Combining an economic strategy with a simulator: meet the needs of fish and observe their lives in real time, while ensuring good breeding results;
A wide variety of freshwater, marine, coral, shrimp, snails and other aquatic species are available;
Customize the aquarium equipment, shape, size and appearance of tanks;
Buy various animal and plant species, sell bred fish in the store and, exceptionally, fine and rare specimens at an auction;
Watch the views from the bathyscaphe cabin as you control it inside the aquarium; you can also use it to clean the tank from the inside;
Decorate your aquarium with lots of decorations, corals, posters etc.

The creators of Fishkeeper announce its PC premiere for the last quarter of 2021. Later console ports are also planned. In the meantime, you can add a game to the Steam Wishlist, which the creators kindly request.

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1425780/Fishkeeper/

Koch Media Group providing global publishing services for the unique genre mix

Ravenscourt, one of Koch Media’s global publishing units, teams up with Indie developer DESTINYbit for the upcoming dice-based city builder survival game Dice Legacy. The original idea creatively blends the best parts of different genres and creates its own distinct place, brought to life by the passion of a core team of only seven developers. Dice Legacy is set to be released digitally on Nintendo Switch as well PC Summer 2021 with Ravenscourt providing full global publishing support.

Dice Legacy will explore new directions that shape the future of digital tabletop games with its unique combination of management and dice chucking gameplay. The debut trailer gives viewers a first glimpse of the enigmatic ringworld and unique game mechanics. Watch as the ship lands on the shores of an uncharted continent and a first settlement takes root. The new land poses its own set of challenges that can be overcome by using the dice at hand or forging new, more powerful dice as well.

Gian Paolo Vernocchi, Founder of DESTINYbit says: “Dice Legacy is an incredibly innovative game and we’re excited to partner with Ravenscourt on our quest to bring our love for dice to the masses. We blended the best elements of survival city builders, roguelikes and board games to create a unique mix. We’re hoping that together with Ravenscourt we can bring our idea to a wider audience and hopefully kick the ball in a new direction for the industry and shape the future of digital tabletop style games.”

Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, Koch Media’s CEO states: “It’s not often that a game as unique as Dice Legacy comes along and therefore is a lovely addition to our Ravenscourt lineup. It’s fascinating to play a game that shows us the dice rolls that usually happen in the background and stays true to its tabletop roots.”

Henrik Jonsson, Executive Producer of Amplifier Game Invest, explains: “Dice Legacy is a perfect example of a game where the core mechanics stand out immediately. When we invested in DESTINYbit, we had played the game only in its rawest form, with just dice and a blue background. We knew the game was an absolutely unique creation and we are exceptionally proud to be partnering with Koch Media and the Ravenscourt publishing label to give Dice Legacy the multiplatform release it deserves.”