Chris North, GamCrowd
Voting is closing at the end of the month to find the winner from the Pitch ICE competition which took place at London’s ExCel during Clarion Gaming’s Totally Gaming event.
In total 14 new start-ups took to the stage during the show to convince attendees of the attraction of the potential of their business idea. The show featured fantasy and social gaming ideas, gaming services suppliers and payments providers and a new responsible gambling tool.
All of these pitches are available to view at the Gamcrowd site, and anyone wishing to select a winner can do so there. Voting closes at midday on February 29th.
Chris North, GamCrowd Founder and the organiser of this year’s show in conjunction with Clarion Gaming, said he was delighted with the quality of the pitches. He stated: “We said when we announced the final line-up that we were hugely impressed with the quality of entries for this year’s show, and as it turned out all the companies came through the Pitch process with flying colours.”
North added: “The standard of presentations was great, the crowd were engaged and it felt like we were generating a huge amount of buzz on the exhibition floor.”
Pitch ICE alumni success
Further testament to the value of Pitch ICE and the quality of previous contestants came from the success of last year’s Pitch ICE winner Gamevy. The company 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 won an award with its SnapBet product.
Helen Walton, Marketing Director at Gamevy, commented: “Last year was incredible for us. Winning Pitch ICE 2015 paved the way for an incredibly exciting year which was topped off this year at ICE when we won the Game to Watch competition.”
Both Gamevy and Fenway Games also took part in the Studio day on the Thursday at the ExCeL where a host of industry experts and start-up advisors gave talks designed to help companies through critical stages in their business journey.
Jon Bradford, the former Chief Executive of TechStars in London, gave a compelling speech on the difficulties faced by start-ups in any sector whilst Phil Halls-Smith and Shula Hagan from law firm Joelson Wilson talked start-up legals. In addition to this Andy Clerkson from Grand Parade gave a talk on tech and GamCrowd’s Chris North gave a wrap-up of the event.
North had this to say: “The whole show went a long way to showcasing how we think the 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.”
He concluded: “We think the whole show showed clearly the sheer amount of talent within 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.”
Source: SBC News
