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The prize was awarded at the Games Beat 2012 trade fair in San Francisco, an international reference event for the videogames industry. The judges emphasized Akamon’s capability to identify untapped market opportunities before applying a combination of innovative distribution, discipline and execution
Barcelona-July 12, 2012 – Akamon Entertainment, the leading international online social gaming company specializing in traditional games, has won the top prize for best startup in online games in the world at Games Beat 2012, one of the main meeting points for the videogames industry and investors in the sector.
Vicenç Martí represented Akamon in the presentation of candidates at the Games Beat 2012, highlighting the company’s belief “in the type of game and regions that are being underserved, namely social and mobile games for southern Europe and Latin America,” and emphasizing Akamon’s commitment to offering a wide range of games adapted to the regional rules of each market and accessible via different channels – local portals, partners’ portals in which it operates with a white label, social networks, and mobile platforms.
The judges, among whom were big names from the gaming industry such as Michael Chang, senior director for corporate development at Electronic Arts, Eric Goldberg, managing director at Crossover Technologies, Ann Burkett, CEO for Games Dojos Accelerator and Gordon Bellamy, executive director at IDGA, were impressed with how “Akamon identified an untapped market opportunity spanning two geographies, and then applied a rare combination of distribution innovation, discipline in attacking the opportunity and execution.” Furthermore, the judges recognized that “the initial commercial results suggest that the company can become a big fish in a pond with defensible barriers to entry.”
Winning the top prize in this international competition is a milestone for the social gaming company. In the words of Vincenç Martí, Akamon CEO, “to win this competition, which is a world-wide reference in the gaming industry, and furthermore being the only non-American company amongst the six finalists with executives who have worked with the leading international online gaming companies, reinforces Akamon’s corporate strategy and its policy for expansion and diversification of channels, while maintaining the shared liquidity and strength of our global gaming community as one of our hallmarks.”
The finalists included Izelis, founded by former Facebook and Zynga employees who have a passion for traditional games; Loki Studios, a mobile games studio founded by gamers from Stanford; Playmous, publisher and marketer of mobile games; Replay Games, founded by industry veterans this company recently raised more than 600,000 dollars in its Kickstarter campaign; and Use It Better, a company dedicated to analyzing user experience.
The “Who’s Got Game” prize allows Akamon to participate in the next edition of “Game Dojos Accelerator,” the most recognized accelerator of gaming companies in Silicon Valley, and gives the company an unbeatable position in front of an audience of investors such as Sequoia Capital, game developers such as Zynga and leading experts in the field of the online gaming and entertainment industry.
The prize coincides with the first anniversary of Akamon, founded in July 2011. In its first year, the company, which started out with the Spanish portal Mundijuegos.com, has launched other local portals in Brazil, France and Italy and has established itself on Facebook, with one of its games becoming the most played in its category on the social network. Furthermore, the company has launched five new games and increased its registered users from 5 to 7 million, as well as closing collaboration deals with leaders in the online social gaming sector in Europe and Latin America.
About Akamon
Akamon Entertainment Limited is an online social gaming company specialising in traditional games, operating in the south of Europe and Latin America via local portals, those of partners that are leaders in the online field and Facebook. With its development team based in Valencia and its business intelligence team in Barcelona, Akamon has a total of 40 employees who are highly specialised in the online sector.
Akamon’s portfolio consists of traditional casino-based local games, such as Tute, Tarot, Roulette, Parcheesi, Poker and Dominoes. All the games incorporate social features and give players the opportunity to be part of a global gaming community where they are online together and share their gaming experience, whether it be via Akamon’s international portals, those of its partners or Facebook. Currently, nine of the games are on Facebook and the company is working to introduce three new games onto the social network each month, with the goal of broadening the gaming community and so offering an even better online social experience.
