Meet Videogame Investors At TIGA’s Access to Finance Event

By January 27, 2015 Press Releases

More great speakers added to TIGA’s International Access to Finance Forum in February

Register here!

TIGA, the network for videogame developers and digital publishers is hosting its annual Access to Finance event on the 20th of February in central London. The event will help developers and publishers meet investors and improve their ability to secure funding. 

The current speaker and running order for the 2015 International Access to Finance Forum is as follows:

 

1:00pm – Nick Parker, Parker Consulting:

“An overview of the investment industry, its size, and where to and how to seek capital” 

1:15pm – Josh Levy, Mercia Fund Management:

“Early stage finance and start-up investment models

1:30pm – Patrick Bradley, Station 12:

Raising investment for early stage games companies: an investor perspective”

1:45pm – Enda Carey, Standfast Interactive:

“Production finance: what, why and how?”

2:00pm – Ifti Akbar, Fuse 3

2:15pm – Shum Singh, Agnitio Capital 

2:30pm – Kirsty Bell, Nyman Lisbon Paul

2:45pm – Tanya Laird, Digital Jam:

“How to run a successful crowdfunding campaign and manage your audience”

3:00pm – Helene Panzarino, Karma Kreations:

“The funding landscape”

3:15pm – Francesca Walker, Creative Europe Desk UK

3:30pm – Vincent Scheurer, Sarassin LLP:

“Preparing your studio for investment”

3:45pm – Travis Winstanley, & Derek De Filippo, Kuju Startups:

“New funding models for independent developers”

4:30pm – Bala Kamallakharan, founder, Startup Iceland:

The value of data, design and the network for startups”

4:45pm – Tim Merel, Digi Capital

5pm – Jason Della Rocca, Execution Labs:

“The Execution Labs Finishing Fund: money and love to get your game done” 

5:15pm – Free drinks and networking

 

As well as best practice advice and feedback, attendees will also get the valuable opportunity to actually pitch for funding for their game or project.  

If you would like to register for a pitch slot please email Vanessa Joyce, TIGA’s Director of Business Development via vanessa@tiga.org and provide 500 words describing the project you would like to pitch and the approximate amount of funding you are looking for.

As with all TIGA events if there are any topics members or attendees would like covered in particular please do get in touch via vanessa@tiga.org and let us know. Your ideas and feedback are always welcome.

Event details:

  • Location: Central London, exact location TBC shortly
  • Date: 20th February 2015
  • Timing 1pm – 6pm followed by networking and free drinks
  • Tickets: Free for TIGA members, £49 for non-members

TIGA’s previous Access to Finance events have been fully booked so attendees are politely asked to register here as early as possible to avoid disappointment. 

 

Dr Richard Wilson, CEO, TIGA, comments:

“Helping game developers and digital publishers connect with investors and develop the skills needed to improve their access to finance remains a core goal of TIGA.

“The 2015 International Access to Finance Forum will help TIGA members and all other attendees start the year well by tackling one of the biggest challenges facing UK games makers today – funding.

“Our roster of speakers continues to go from strength to strength and this year we will have excellent international expertise being shared to help attendees both realise and take advantage of the global opportunities the videogame industry provides.

“I hope that this important TIGA event will enable more games developers secure finance and successfully bring their games to market.”

 

-ends-

 

Notes to Editors

 

Speaker Biographies:

 

Nick Parker 

Nick has been in the games industry for over twenty years, serving at executive level for Nintendo, Sony PlayStation (VP) and Atari (VP). For the last twelve years, Nick has been running Parker Consulting, the industry’s foremost strategic business consultancy, specialising in building business plans, due diligence and raising capital through research, facilitation, planning and forecasting, as well as assistance with online strategies and the cloud.  Clients include start-ups seeking help with business plans to raise capital or more established companies requiring additional resources to improve financial performance and operational efficiencies for diversification. The consultancy has advised, among others, Vodafone, BBC, BT (OnLive), Sony, Jagex, Nintendo, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Activision, BSkyB (Sky TV), UbiSoft, Codemasters, CCP, Gaikai, Game Group, publishers, developers, VCs, banks, lawyers, accountants.

 

Tanya Laird

Tanya has been working in the digital industry across entertainment IP and innovation for the last ten years working primarily with global gaming and entertainment franchises such as Star Wars, Marvel and Moshi Monsters that have achieved BAFTA, Golden joystick, Develop, Chartered Institute of Marketing, The Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) and Telly Awards respectively. 

Tanya also provides mentoring and consultancy to new tech startups across a wide variety of business incubators and accelerators including Wayra, Wayra Ultd, Oxygen Accelerator, The New Entreprenurs Foundation and The School of Communication Arts 2.0. She is also an expert judge for the Future8 awards and an expert adviser for Power to the Pixel. Her work spans across multiple industries and disciplines with one unifying trend: forward thinking innovation.

 

Helene Panzarino 

Passionate, proactive, and highly experienced Entrepreneur, Educator, Facilitator, and Mentor, Helene is successful in building and leveraging commercial networks, establishing and developing collaborative relationships and partnerships, and in actively assisting in the growth of tech SMEs in the UK.

A former Banker, and an initially accidental, but successful serial entrepreneur with large corporate experience, very active in the SME marketplace, and particularly in enabling finance in the Tech sector. 

Consultant, advisor and trainer to the SME community since 1998, following the sale of her second business, with most recent experience at Grant Thornton on the BIS backed Growth Accelerator Access to Finance Scheme, Helene has helped hundreds of companies to prepare for investment and introduction to funder, resulting in over £25m in funds raised in an 18 month period. 

Her most recent assignment as Head of Programmes for Innovate Finance, concluded in November 2014, having created, designed, developed and launched the inaugural Programme of Events, for the Fintech industry trade body.  

Helene has been called ‘relentless’ in her pursuit to help British businesses grow and succeed, and is known for banging on about getting all areas of the business world working together on a truly global basis. 

 

Travis Winstanley & Derek De Filippo, Kuju Startups 

Travis and Derek co-founded the Kuju Startups Fund in 2013 with the simple intention to invest in great games. Travis leads the design of new funds, and the financial evaluation and legal implementation of investments. Derek is heading the fund’s operations, and the production and business development of each portfolio company.  

 

Bala Kamallakharan, Startup Iceland

Bala Kamallakhara is the Founder of Startup Iceland, a initiative to build sustainable startup ecosystems in Iceland. Bala served as the CEO of GreenQloud from 2012 to 2014, the worlds first public compute cloud powered 100% by renewable energy. 

He grew the Icelandic startup from a 10 member team to a leading Cloud Solutions provider with offices in Iceland, Brazil and in the US. Bala also served in the role of Member of the Board of Directors at GreenQloud. 

Bala invested, mentored and was the Chairman of the Board at CLARA (Resonata), the Icelandic Community Analytics company which was acquired by Jive Software in 2013. CLARA was the first Icelandic company to be acquired into Silicon Valley. 

The other investment that Bala made was Buuteeq which was acquired by Priceline.com. Bala is establishing the first private Venture Capital fund called ENGI in Iceland focused on investing in Icelandic companies that create value on top of networks.

 

Josh Levy, Mercia Fund

Josh is an investment manager who has led investments predominantly within Mercia’s digital portfolio. He has sourced a number of gaming and e-commerce deals, and sits on the board of Kwanji and Love Me Beauty amongst others. He has attained the CFA’s Investment Management Certificate and is currently in the process of studying towards a CIMA management accounting qualification. Prior to joining Mercia, Josh interned at a number of financial institutions such as Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Loews Corporation. He graduated with an upper second degree in Land Economy with Management Studies from the University of Cambridge, and is a 2013-2014 Fellow of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation.’

 

Patrick Bradley, Station 12

Patrick is the founder of Station 12, an investment business focused on the media, media tech and entertainment sectors. Patrick was previously CEO of Ingenious Ventures which he span out to form Station 12 in April 2014. 

He has led investments across the sector including in games, marketing services, television production and distribution, music publishing and live events. Prior to Ingenious, he worked as a lawyer in London and Brussels and subsequently held operational roles in the music, film and TV industries. 

Patrick is a trustee of IntoFilm, the BFI sponsored film education agency, a governor of the University for the Creative Arts and a trustee of the National Army Museum.

 

Enda Carey, Standfast Interactive

Enda Carey is a games and interactive entertainment specialist with many years experience in this sector prior to setting up his consultancy, Fisano Ltd in 2011.  He currently works with a number of clients worldwide assisting them with their games, digital and marketing strategies and helping them to build their business. As the publishing officer for Standfast Interactive, Enda assesses the commercial opportunities for all games that look for funding and then assists developers in getting their game to market. 

Before setting up his consultancy Enda spearheaded Vision and Media’s Games and Digital Content department and was responsible for developing and delivering a strategy of support to games, interactive and digital content businesses throughout the Northwest of England. This included helping companies access finance, accessing new markets and grow their business.  

 

Shum Singh, Agnitio Capital  

Shum founded agnitio capital in 2003 and is an investor and non executive director of SocialSpiel Entertainment GmbH, Fragment Productions Oy and Ocean View Games Oy. Shum is incredibly passionate about the games industry and has spoken at various games conferences including Mobile Games Forum, Casual Connect Europe, Develop UK, Nordic Game Conference, Pocket Gamer (Helsinki) and G-Star in Busan, Korea. Shum is also an early stage investor in Hutch Games Limited. Prior to establishing agnitio capital, Shum was employed in the venture capital division of Durlacher plc, where he was responsible for sourcing and managing Durlacher’s mobile entertainment and consumer internet investments. Prior to Durlacher, Shum worked for the Investment Banking division of CIBC Oppenheimer in New York in the Technology group where he executed a wide range of transactions including mergers and acquisitions, public equity offerings and strategic advisory transactions.

 

Tim Merel, Digi Capital 

Tim has experience in mobile internet, games & digital from both investment banking and industry, with education in software engineering, law and business from Yale and Sydney University. Tim is a global super-connector, with C-level relationships across start-ups, high growth independents, corporates and VC/private equity. Tim leverages his knowledge, relationships and ideas within and across regions in America, Asia and Europe for M&A, investment and strategy, using his experience from 60 engagements globally. Tim is recognised as a global mobile internet and games investment expert, equally comfortable at discussing deal structures, strategy, operations or technology. Prior to investment banking, Tim worked for News Corporation and Ernst & Young in America, Asia and Europe.

 

Kirsty Bell, Nyman Lisbon Paul

Kirsty Bell – Managing Director and creator of Goldfinch EIS & SEIS Investments, The Movies Begin Ltd & Partner at Nyman Libson Paul.

Kirsty is both a successful film producer and a tax specialist who has spent much of her career at top-ten accountancy firms. This combined expertise has seen her focus on the structuring of film companies and their finance raises since 1996 – a period in which she has raised over £100m for the industry, and more recently on any of the sectors included under the Creative Industry umbrella.

In January 2014 she set up Goldfinch Pictures, a series of EIS and SEIS film investment vehicles.  This quickly grew to cover all the Creative Industry sectors (Film, TV, Animation, Theatre, and Video Games) and to over 60 projects!  

Having raised over £4million in the past 12months enabling 23 projects to happen she is adept at not just picking the best projects to enter into Goldfinch, but at structuring, presenting and introducing their creators to her vast network of contacts to ensure they maximise their potential.  Her abilities and those within Nyman Libson Paul and Goldfinch  mean content creators are offered a ‘one stop shop’ approach, epitomised not just in our Goldfinch offer but in The Movies Begin Ltd a film tax credit loan business setup by Kirsty to further service our clients needs (The Games Begin ltd is in the pipeline!). 

Kirsty’s first-hand knowledge of production and experience in all aspects of creative industry finance – particularly Tax Credits and Enterprise Investment Scheme structures – along with her vast network and ability to think around problems, make her an invaluable source of advice for both production/development companies and investors.

 

Vincent Scheurer 

Vincent Scheurer is a veteran video games lawyer and an investor in video games companies.  Vincent is a partner at Sarassin LLP, a legal and business affairs consultancy for video games companies.

 

Jason Della Rocca

Jason Della Rocca is the co-founder of Executions Labs, a first-of-its kind accelerator and investment platform for independent game developers. Formerly, Jason was a game industry consultant focused on business and cluster development, working with game studios and organizations all over the world. 

Prior, he served as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) for nearly nine years, and was honored for his industry building efforts with the inaugural Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Conference. In 2009, Jason was named to Game Developer Magazine’s “Power 50,” a list which profiles 50 of the most important contributors to the state of the game industry.

As a sought after expert on the game industry, Jason has lectured at conferences and universities worldwide. He also serves on various advisory boards and volunteer roles, such as co-chairing IGDA-Montreal, as an advisor to the ICT Practice of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, and serving on the research management committee of the GRAND Network Center of Excellence.

 

About TIGA 

TIGA is network for games developers and digital publishers. We are the trade association representing the UK video game industry. We help developers and digital publishers build successful studios, network with the right people, save money and access professional business advice. We also have traditional publishers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities amongst our membership. 

TIGA is 90% funded by independent UK businesses. 80% of our board members are developers and/or from UK owned businesses, and 50% of our board are UK business owners themselves. Since 2010, TIGA has won 17 business awards.

TIGA focuses on three sets of activities: 

  • Political representation
  • Media representation
  • Business services

This enhances the competitiveness of our members by providing benefits that make a material difference to their businesses, including a reduction in costs and improved commercial opportunities. It also means our members’ voices are heard in the corridors of power and positively represented in national, broadcast and UK video game trade media.

Get in touch:

For further information, you can also contact:

 

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