- Playventure announced as winner of Pitch ICE 2016
- Innovative pool betting product provider wins over 13 other competitors
London, 4 March 2016: GamCrowd is delighted to announce that Athens-based live pool betting product provider Playventure has won this year’s Pitch ICE competition.
Playventure beat 13 other start-up competitors to this year’s title. Each took part in the show at London’s ExCel in early February, taking to the stage to talk to event attendees about their business idea. Alongside the winner, the show featured fantasy and social gaming ideas, gaming services suppliers and payments providers and a new responsible gambling tool.
Playventure allows players to compete against other in a tournament format with the winnings distributed on a pool-betting basis.
Chris North, the founder of GamCrowd and the organiser of this year’s show in conjunction with Clarion Gaming, said he was pleased with the result. “I’m delighted for Playventure; they deserve the prize. They gave a great presentation, they have a great product and they were consistently promoting themselves before, during and after the show.”
Katerina Mygiaki, marketing executive at Playventure, said of the win: “Live Plus winning Pitch ICE was the best thing that could happen to us. We were one of these literally-last-minute entries and we really put a lot of effort and time into making it work. From the pitch video, to the pitching process, the networking and the feedback during ICE, today we believe it all paid off.” She added: “We knew we had a great idea, an innovative product and a good team to support it, but we also knew that the competition was really high and that we had to give our best in order to win. And we did.”
North added that the success of Playventure was another endorsement of the Pitch ICE process. “The winner faced stiff competition this year; the standard of entrants was very high and there were some great businesses in the line-up that I’m sure we will be hearing more from in the coming months.”
He added: “The feedback we have had from this year’s show has been tremendous and displays the level interest in the industry for supporting innovation, new ideas and entrepreneurs. We intend to build on this interest with our continued involvement with Clarion Launchpad events at the upcoming GiGse and EiG in October and we will be back next year for Pitch ICE 2017.”
A history of success
Pitch ICE is starting to prove its value to the industry. Last year’s Pitch ICE winner Gamevy which won the award for Game to Watch at this year’s ICE Totally Gaming event for its game The Heist. Meanwhile, another Pitch ICE alumnus Fenway Games also won an award with its SnapBet product.
The two days of Pitch ICE were followed by the ground-breaking Studio day on the Thursday of ICE Totally Gaming where a host of industry experts and start-up advisors gave talks at the show designed to help companies through critical stages in their business journey.
“The Pitch show this year showcased how we think our upcoming GamCrowd News and GamCrowd Studio sites will give added value to new ventures in the space, providing free advice and guidance just when companies really need it,” North said. “We think the whole show showed clearly the sheer amount of talent within and coming to the gaming industry, but also signposted how companies and entrepreneurs need help from the off. This is what GamCrowd News and Studio is designed to do.”
Contact info:
For GamCrowd:
Scott Longley at Clear Concise Media
[email protected]
Tel: +44 (0) 7899 873 017
For Playventure:
Katerina Mygiaki [email protected] +30 210 685 7185
Editor’s notes
About GamCrowd News and Studio
About GamCrowd News and Studio GamCrowd Studio and News channels are set to be launched within the next month. The sites will focus on the start-up end of the gambling market supplying an indispensable resource for market entrants and a platform for the whole industry to hear about the latest in ideas and innovation. GamCrowd News and Studio aims to be the online meeting place where talented entrepreneurs and innovators bring new ideas to the crowd while at the same time feeding back valuable insight and information from those in the know.
About Playventure Playventure’s product was ‘Live Plus’, a betting solution that combines the thrill of a live betting product with the classic value of pool betting. Players compete against each other in a tournament format. Each tournament has a competitive prize, based on the participants’ pool. The objective of Live Plus is betting on real outcomes. The company was formed in 2014.
