Startup Estonia Programme to Support First European Gaming Business Accelerator GameFounders.com

GameFounders is the first business accelerator in Europe that is purely focused on the field of gaming. The accelerator, co-financed by the Startup Estonia programme, will offer starting game companies startup capital in addition to high-level mentors and a global contact network.

Startup Estonia is supporting the gaming business accelerator GameFounders.com.

"Startup Estonia is glad to be supporting the first European accelerator in the field of gaming, which will provide an international startup company with a high-level business development and financing programme. We hope to create a gaming sector on the same level as Finland —in the past ten years the field of gaming has been very systematically developed there. One example of the good results achieved is the global success story of Angry Birds," Dmitri Burnashev, director of the business startup division of Enterprise Estonia, said about the accelerator. "We have at our disposal a large number of experienced experts and investors in the field of gaming, and Estonia has demonstrated itself as a successful startup environment country," Burnashev added.

Kadri Ugand, the initiator of GameFounders, said that participants in the accelerator must have a beta version of a game or platform ready and the team must be motivated enough to develop exponentially in the space of three months. "We welcome applications not only from the creators of games, but also the makers of applications that use game mechanics – such solutions are used in education, sports and medicine, for example, and other fields as well," Ugand said.

The first round of applications for GameFounders will be closed on Tuesday,10 July. More than fifty applications from twenty-seven countries have been submitted to the accelerator, including from the US, Finland, Kenya, and Brazil. The companies that will make it to the first European business accelerator in the field of gaming will be identified at the beginning of August. The companies participating in the first round for GameFounders will move to Estonia at the end of August; the programme will last until the end of November. The companies that join the accelerator will be advised by more than sixty mentors experienced in the field of gaming; the companies in the accelerator will also meet foreign investors and top people of the gaming sector.

Applications for joining the GameFounders accelerator will be accepted until 10 July. Additional information about the accelerator and instructions for submitting applications can be found at http://gamefounders.com/.

The Startup Estonia programme of Enterprise Estonia has been created to strengthen and develop the ecosystem of startup companies in Estonia. Startup Estonia is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.

For more information please visit www.facebook.com/startupestonia and www.facebook.com/gamefounders.