LONDON (28 February) – The US online gambling market is still in its infancy, and with momentum building around state-level regulation in the country, a wave of new ideas focusing on the convergence between social and real-money gaming have been streaming out of Silicon Valley. To provide a platform for these ideas to be presented to the wider gaming industry and to the investment community, the 13th Global iGaming Summit & Expo (GiGse) is pleased to announce the 2nd GiGse LaunchPad, a start-up competition that will see up to five start-ups pitching their ideas to the panel of judges and to the entire 700-plus audience.
Start-ups will be quizzed and drilled by renowned investors such as Josh Hannah of Matrix Partners, Steven Schlenker of DN Capital and Ben Sternberg of The Raine Group. But it will be up to the combined GiGse and ScS audience to choose the winner in interactive voting. Ben Sternberg, LaunchPad judge, said about his involvement in the LaunchPad: ‘Raine has been deeply engaged in the social casino industry, having sold Double Down Interactive and Buffalo Studios last year. At GiGse, I’m looking forward to meeting the innovative start-ups that are changing the industry’.
Submissions are accepted until March 22nd, and all gaming start-ups that are trying to get their feet off the ground and have a unique, compelling proposition that differentiates itself from everything else available on the market are invited to apply. Social gaming, mobile, gaming technology, cross-channel integration and customer loyalty offerings are amongst the trends particularly welcomed by organisers, considering the particular context of the San Francisco event, dominated by the land-based gaming executives who are gearing up to ‘flip the switch’ to regulated iGaming.
Submissions from outside of the gambling sector are also encouraged and San Francisco, being a technology hub, played a huge part in attracting start-ups for which the Launchpad was the first ever opportunity to interact with this lucrative sector last year. That was the case for the 2012 GiGse LaunchPad winner, a social game analytics firm, Use It Better. Its CEO and Founder, Lukasz Twardowski, said recently: ‘GiGse opened the world of online gambling to us and we continue discussing the many partnership opportunities with both iGaming companies and investors’.
The 2nd GiGse LaunchPad will take place on April 24, 2013 during the 13 Global iGaming Summit & Expo and Social Casino Summit, co-located this year with the newly launched Social Casino Summit, in San Francisco, CA. For more information and the submission criteria, please visit www.gigse.com.
