Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United States based Founder operating in the Gaming space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Chad Hurley
Co-Founder and Chairman of GreenPark Sports
Chad Hurley is the Co-Founder & Former CEO of YouTube. In October 2006 he, along with the other founders, sold the company for $1.65 billion to Google. Prior to YouTube he worked in eBay’s PayPal division, where he helped design the original PayPal logo.
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About GreenPark Sports: GreenPark Sports is a social sports gaming developer designed to create a virtual sports environment for sports and eSports fans.
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Ken Martin
CEO & Co-Founder of GreenPark Sports
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About GreenPark Sports: GreenPark Sports is a social sports gaming developer designed to create a virtual sports environment for sports and eSports fans.
Kun Gao
Co-Founder, President & COO of GGWP
Kun Gao joined GGWP as Co-Founder, President & COO.
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About Crunchyroll, GGWP: GGWP provides a gaming tool to help reduce toxic and disruptive in the game.
GEORGE NG
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of GGWP
George Ng joined GGWP as Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer.
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About GGWP: GGWP provides a gaming tool to help reduce toxic and disruptive in the game.
Tommy Krul
Founder & CTO of Super Evil Mega Corp
Previously at Riot Games, Gazillion, Factor 5 and Guerilla Games, Tommy is the architect of the Super Evil engine and technology approach.
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About Super Evil Mega Corp: Super Evil Megacorp is developing core games for tablet, mobile, and emerging platforms.
Richard Bernardino
Founder & CEO, Software Architect of Orchidware Studios
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About Orchidware Studios, Project Blue Butterfly, Project Shrub, Project Umami: Fun, exciting, fascinating video games for players of all ages to enjoy.
Ankush Gera
Founder/CEO of Junglee Games
Stage-agnostic angel investor. Founder/CEO at Junglee Games. Headquartered in San Francisco, Junglee is South East Asia’s fastest growing skill money gaming company with over 10 million users. Previously founded Monsoon Company (acquired by Capital One), adigital agency that helped Yammer, TOMS, Zazzle, HP, and other fortune 100 clients launch their mobile experiences. Ankush serves on the board of Kunai and is an active angel investor in startups like 15five, DilMil, Immediately and Cloudability. He is an LP in Kae Capital and the Tandeme Fund and a Venture Partner at Unshackled.
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About Cloudability, Junglee Games, Junglee Rummy: Junglee Games develops cutting-edge gaming technology and customized licensing solutions for desktop and mobile platforms.
Tony DiMatteo
Co-Founder & CEO of Lottery.com
Tony DiMatteo is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lottery.com, a U.S. based online and mobile lottery service. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, DiMatteo serves as CEO to drive the Company’s development, global initiatives, and strategy. Tony is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of WinTogether, an organization that supports charitable causes and incentivizes giving back. Through his platforms, Tony aims to develop social good companies and a global force of impact. In 2019, he was the recipient of the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award. Media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Inc., have recognized Tony for his approach to entrepreneurship and ideas on the future of fundraising.
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About Lottery.com: Lottery.com is a lottery ticket management service that allows users to play and monitor the lottery from their phones.
Matt Clemenson
Co-Founder & President of Lottery.com
Matt oversees LesConcierges’ global technology strategy and implementation, including information technology, security and compliance, and software development. Matt has led technology teams for over ten years, and prior to joining LesConcierges in January 2012, he was Head of Internal IT at Hotwire.com. With more than four years with Hotwire and Expedia, Matt helped to establish enterprise best practices while gaining knowledge about the travel industry. Matt is a perpetual student of business and a serial entrepreneur with many successful business ventures under his belt, from mobile apps to laundromats. He is constantly in pursuit of the next big achievement, and he fundamentally understands that every end user is actually a customer. Matt spends his spare time learning new things, such as piano and Italian, though he claims that none of it sticks with him. Always looking for the next opportunity, he serves as an advisor to several small firms and startups, keeping him ever learning new tech skills. Matt and his wife of six years, Lolita, volunteer with various philanthropic organizations as a way to give back.
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About Lottery.com: Lottery.com is a lottery ticket management service that allows users to play and monitor the lottery from their phones.
Ali Moiz
Founder of VULCUN
Founder at Stonks.
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About Stonks, VULCUN: The largest prize pools in Fantasy eSports
Justin Waldron
Co-Founder and President of Playco
Justin Waldron is Co-Founder & President of Playco, and previously Co-Founder / EVP of Product of Zynga, the world’s largest mobile game company. Zynga IPO’d in 2011 with a $10 billion valuation and over $1b in annual revenue. Justin is an angel investor in Lambda School, Substack, and 60+ other companies. He mentors young entrepreneurs at The Thiel Foundation’s Thiel Fellowship program.
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About Playco, Zynga: Playco is a developer of instant-play games across a variety of platforms.
Justin Siegel
Co-Founder & CEO of MocoSpace
Justin Siegel is the CEO & Co-Founder at JNJ Mobile.
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About ATX Angel, Capital Factory, JNJ Mobile, MocoSpace, NextGen Venture Partners, NRG eSports, Techstars, Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies: MocoSpace is a mobile gaming community for playing games, making friends, and staying connected.
Roman Mikailov
Founder, CEO of Hyperverse
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About Hyperverse: Hyperverse is a software company that develops VR experience distribution platforms for its clients.
Ben Hantoot
Co-Founder & Partner of Cards Against Humanity
Ben Hantoot is a co-founder and partner of Cards Against Humanity. He is responsible for running the company’s supply chain, directing product design, managing large vendor accounts, oversees software development, and writes poop jokes. Ben is also the co-founder and partner of Blackbox and Dinosaur Coffee. He is previously affiliated with Hook as the company’s creative director. Ben has a bachelor’s degree in psycholinguistics at Brown University.
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About Cards Against Humanity: Cards Against Humanity is a free party game which is as despicable and awkward as its players.
Benjamin Heidorn
CTO & Co-Founder of Blockade Games
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About Blockade Games: Blockade Games designs puzzles and games built on blockchain technology.
Craig Hochstadt
Founder & COO of Nextpro
Craig Hochstadt was born in Columbia, Maryland on July 5, 1980. He attended and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003 where he majored in communications and also played lacrosse. Professionally, Craig has worked on a number of successful marketing campaigns, projects and entrepreneurial-related roles in sports, music, entertainment, and theatrical movie marketing. A few of his personal interests and hobbies include technology, entrepreneurship, biohacking, meditation, dogs, Apple products, the “Internet of Things”, travel, the Pacific Ocean, and college and professional sports (specifically football, basketball, and lacrosse). Craig is also an avid fan, user and consumer of two special caffeinated beverages: 1. Ceremonial grade matcha green tea. Matcha is a finely ground powder of a specially grown and processed form of green tea. In traditional Chinese and Japanese matcha green tea, a ceremony is centered on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha green tea. 2. Bulletproof Coffee – which is a butter-coffee combo that has taken the health community by storm and was created by world-famous biohacker and author of the Bulletproof Diet, Dave Asprey. Today Craig maintains his passion for technology and entrepreneurship. He one day hopes to invent something that will help make the world a better place. Craig and his wife currently reside in Los Angeles, California
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About Nextpro: NextPro creates & produces over 50K games per year across 5 sports, and distribute this content to a large and captive audience.
Jordan Maron
Co-Founder, Creative Director of XREAL, Inc.
Jordan Maron, known to many by the alias “CaptainSparklez”, has been producing web video content for the last six years. His work, most of which is focused on gaming, has amassed over 2.5 billion views. He served as the creative directory for the mobile game Fortress Fury, which has amassed over 2 million downloads.
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About XREAL, Inc.: Building the Future of Competitive Mobile Gaming
Anthony Borquez
Founder & CEO of Grab Games
Anthony is experienced in building and scaling creative tech businesses. His first company he co-founded, Spacient Technologies, was an early mobile GPS software platform that was acquired by Trimble Navigation. Anthony’s prior game company, Blue Label Games, built some of the first mobile gaming technology and content. In 2006, Blue Label Games was acquired by Japanese gaming leader Konami. The acquisition helped enable Konami’s mobile gaming division to become a top worldwide mobile game publisher. Anthony is also a Professor at the University of Southern California, where he teaches courses in Entrepreneurship and Gaming.
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About Faceroll Games, Flightly, Grab Games, University of Southern California, University of Southern California Marshall School of Business: Grab is focused on creating high-quality entertainment content across all major interactive platforms.
Boris Revsin
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Business Development & Strategy of Dailybreak
Boris Revsin is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of CampusLIVE, Inc, “The Homepage for College Students,” providing single-click access to the most widely used college resources. Boris has an extensive background in web development and digital media, founding his first website in 1999. While attending UMass Amherst, he worked as the Head of Operations for the Amherst-based web-development firm JaredWeb, Inc and as a web consultant for the 2008 Mitt Romney Presidential Campaign. Boris, along with the CampusLIVE team, was named 3rd place in the 2008 BusinessWeek “Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25.” He has also been honored as an “Emerging Entrepreneur” by Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. BusinessWest Magazine named Boris Revsin to the 2010 class of “40 Under 40”.
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About Dailybreak, Fullstack Ventures, Republic, Republic Capital: A revolutionary online media platform that allows users to earn rewards for engaging in shareable, interactive content.
Anil Aggarwal
Founder and Owner of iEnergizer
iEnergizer Ltd at Founder.
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About iEnergizer: iEnergizer is a provider of business process outsourcing solutions.
Dirk Lueth
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Upland
Dirk Lueth is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Upland.
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About Upland: Upland is a virtual property trading game mapped to the real world and based on blockchain technology.
Ryan Schott
Co-Founder & President of Screenwave Media
Ryan Schott is the co-founder and president of Screenwave Media.
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About Screenwave Media: Screenwave Media is a content creators like gaming, original website serials, animation, music artist and comics.
Vlad Korolev
CEO & Co-Founder of Gunzilla Games
Vlad Korolev is the CEO and Co-Founder at Gunzilla Games.
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About Gunzilla Games, PLINK: Gunzilla Games is an independent, innovative, and player-focused developer of AAA games.
Bill Paxton
Co-Founder of Rockstar Games
Co-Founder at Rockstar Games.
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About Rockstar Games: Rockstar Games is a multinational video game development and publishing company.
Jesse Zhang
CEO and Founder of Lowkey
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About Camelot.ai, Lowkey, Lowkey: The home for watching and creating short gaming videos
Benjamin Tse
Co-Founder & CPO of Genopets
Award-winning product designer with 15+ years in UI/UX, Business Strategy, SaaS, E-commerce, and Branding. 6 years in blockchain and crypto-asset platforms. Winner of EOS Global Hackathon in 2018.
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About Genopets, Hundredfold Studios: Genopets is a non-fungible token (NFT) “move-to-earn” game where players are rewarded for the steps they take in real life.
Jay Chang
Co-Founder of Genopets
Product Management and Marketing leader with 10+ years experience. 4 years in blockchain, 3 in product marketing leading the go-to-market for EOS at Block.one prior to joining Google’s P&E dev marketing team.
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About Genopets: Genopets is a non-fungible token (NFT) “move-to-earn” game where players are rewarded for the steps they take in real life.
Albert Chen
Co-Founder & CEO of Genopets
10+ years in growth marketing as owner of multiple e-commerce businesses. 10+ years in software development with 4 years focused in blockchain engineering. Winner of EOS Global Hackathon in 2018.
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About Cocoon Worldwide, Genopets, masklab: Genopets is a non-fungible token (NFT) “move-to-earn” game where players are rewarded for the steps they take in real life.
Eli Brown
Founder of Guilded
Eli Brown is the Founder at Guilded. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Washington State University.
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About Guilded: Guilded helps gaming teams recruit, improve, and complete.
Paul Bettner
Founder & CEO of Playful Studios
Paul Bettner has been creating beloved entertainment for 20 years, including the smash hit Words With Friends. He started Playful Corp in 2012 and recently launched Lucky’s Tale, a delightful platforming adventure bundled with every Oculus Rift.
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About Playful Studios: Playful is a new game development studio in McKinney, TX. Our team has shipped beloved titles such as Words with Friends.
Katy Drake Bettner
Co-Founder of Playful Studios
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About Playful Studios: Playful is a new game development studio in McKinney, TX. Our team has shipped beloved titles such as Words with Friends.
Robbie Schneidman
Co-Founder & CTO of Z League
Robbie Schneidman is the Co-Founder and CTO at Z League.
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About Z League: The world’s first skill-based e-sports tournament platform
Lucas Pellan
Co-Founder of Z League
Lucas Pellan currently works as Co-Founder at Z League. He was a CSO and Co-Founder of Sonder.
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About Z League: The world’s first skill-based e-sports tournament platform
Skyler Johnson
Founder of Envy Gaming
Skyler Johnson is the Chief Creative Officer of Gamma Labs and Founder of Envy Gaming.
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About Envy Gaming, G FUEL: Envy Gaming is an Esports entertainment organization that competes, streams, and produces content across multiple online games.
Harry Gottlieb
Founder of Jackbox Games
Harry Gottlieb is Founder @ Jackbox Games.
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About Jackbox Games, Jellyvision: Jackbox Games is a multi-platform game publishing company that develops a portfolio of games for various platforms.
Paullie Etienne
Founder/COO of Cloud9
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About Cloud9: Cloud9 is a professional multi-game esports organization that is based in the Los Angeles, California area.
Jed Strong
CEO & Co-Founder of Tiv
Jed Strong currently works as the CEO & Co-founder for Tiv. He previously worked at Intersport as the General Manager.
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About Tiv: Tiv is a financial technology company that offers mobile banking and rewards products built for the gaming community.
JP Pillat
Co-Founder of Tiv
JP Pillat currently works as the Co-Founder for Tiv. He previously worked at Intersport as the Community Director.
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About Tiv: Tiv is a financial technology company that offers mobile banking and rewards products built for the gaming community.
Vlad Panchenko
Founder & CEO of DMarket
Volodymyr Panchenko is private merchant of digital games in the world. He is founder of skins.cash — 2nd biggest virtual items marketplace. He is also founder and CEO of Suntechsoft.
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About DMarket, DreamTeam, Suntechsoft: DMarket is a marketplace for NFTs trading and technology for building metaverses.
Gene Munster
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Gene Munster is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Doug Clinton
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Doug Clinton is a managing partner and co-founder at Loup Ventures. Prior to Loup Ventures, Doug was a research analyst at Piper Jaffray where he covered the internet space with Gene Munster. Covered companies included Apple, Google, and Facebook. Prior to joining Piper Jaffray in 2008, Doug was an early employee in sales and operations at Enpocket, which was later acquired by Nokia. Doug’s experience at Enpocket led to his interest in startups. Doug holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Boston University.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Andrew Murphy
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Andrew Murphy is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures. Before that, he was the Senior Marketing Manager at Ecolab.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Jernej Barbic
Co-Founder and CTO of Ziva Dynamics
Jernej Barbic is the co-founder and CTO at Ziva Dynamics.
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About Ziva Dynamics: Ziva Dynamics is a software company that specializes in character creation and human simulation.
Shane Zhu
Founder & CEO of DeHorizon
Shane(Shengjie) Zhu is the Founder and CEO of DeHorizon.
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About Blok Party, DeHorizon: DeHorizon—Cutting a new decentralized horizon
Jeremy Levine
Founder, Chairman & President of Underdog Sports
Jeremy Levine was the Co-Founder & CEO of Draft. He is currently the Founder, Chairman, and President at Underdog Fantasy.
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About Underdog Sports: Fantasy sports for real money
Brandon Stakenborg
Founder & CEO of Underdog Sports
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About Underdog Sports: Fantasy sports for real money
Trevor John
Founder & Chief Technology Officer of Underdog Sports
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About Underdog Sports: Fantasy sports for real money
Jeffrey Tong
CEO & Co-Founder of Zelos Gaming
Jeffrey Tong serves as the CEO and founder of Zelos Gaming.
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About Zelos Gaming: Zelos is a cross-game rewards program that enables gamers to earn points by completing in-game tasks and redeem virtual prizes.
Derek Chiang
Co-Founder & CTO of Zelos Gaming
Derek Chiang serves as a co-founder and CTO at Zelos Gaming.
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About Zelos Gaming: Zelos is a cross-game rewards program that enables gamers to earn points by completing in-game tasks and redeem virtual prizes.
David Danglard
Founder of K1 Speed
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About K1 Speed: K1 Speed is an entertainment platform indoor go kart racing.
Susan Danglard
Founder of K1 Speed
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About K1 Speed: K1 Speed is an entertainment platform indoor go kart racing.
Andrew Miller
Founder & CEO of NRG eSports
Andy Miller is the Founder & CEO at NRG Esports.
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About 1Energy Systems, Internet Real Estate Group, NRG eSports, NRG eSports, NRG eSports, Sacramento Kings, Sacramento Kings: NRG eSports is looking to set precedence in the industry of eSports.
Nanea Reeves
CEO and Co-Founder of TRIPP
As CEO of TRIPP, Nanea Reeves brings over 15 years experience in digital distribution, video game technologies and mobile application development. Prior to co-founding TRIPP, Nanea was President & COO of textPlus, one of the top mobile communications applications on the iOS and Android platforms. Before joining textPlus, Nanea was the COO of Machinima, an online video influencer and content network focused on video games now owned by Warner Brothers. Nanea has also served as Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Gaikai, a cloud gaming company acquired by Sony Playstation. Previous to Gaikai, Nanea was SVP/COO of Global Online for Electronic Arts where she was responsible for building the foundation for EA’s digital revenue streams. Nanea came to EA through their acquisition of JAMDAT where she was SVP of Enabling Technologies. JAMDAT was one of the first breakout mobile games company with a successful IPO in 2005 before being acquired by EA in 2006. Nanea is very committed to supporting the evolution of the technology sector in Los Angeles and has worked as an Advisor and Angel Investor in many exciting So-Cal start-ups including Oculus, Haku and Saucey. Nanea is an active mentor and enjoys public speaking having given 3 Tedx talks on various subjects – including one focused on why girls should play video games. An avid meditator, Nanea also spends her free time playing video games, her ukulele and golf. She is also very active in her late husband’s non-profit Bodhicitta, Inc. as well as dedicated to helping women in recovery at the Peggy Albrecht Friendly House.
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About TRIPP: The award-winning digital psychedelic wellness platform that uses the power of virtual and augmented reality to change the way you feel.
Tony Cannon
Founder, CTO of Radiant Entertainment
Tony graduated from Stanford University in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Before Radiant, Tony spent 11 years leading technical teams at VMware, Microsoft, and VXtreme. On the side, Tony pioneered latency-hiding techniques for peer-to-peer online games. His technology, licensed under the name “GGPO,” is used in many of today’s fighting games.
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About Radiant Entertainment, Riot Games: Radiant Entertainment is an American video game developer that creates networking code software solutions.
Josh Newman
Co-Founder and CTO of Spectrum Labs
A former Software Architect at Salesforce, Josh began his career at a research center of Middlebury College. After transitioning to tech, Josh spent a decade developing scalable data management and distributed systems at Vodori, Syapse, and Krux (acquired by Salesforce). Sales: sales@getspectrum.io | Blog: getspectrum.io/blog
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About Spectrum Labs: Spectrum Labs helps consumer brands recognize and respond to toxic behaviors happening within their online communities.
Justin Davis
Co-Founder & CEO of Spectrum Labs
Currently Spectrum’s Co-Founder & CEO, Justin previously managed and scaled Salesforce’s Data Studio platform as a Product Director. He’s worked for numerous industry stalwarts – including Krux, Adobe, SAS, and Microsoft. Sales: sales@getspectrum.io | Blog: getspectrum.io/blog
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About Spectrum Labs: Spectrum Labs helps consumer brands recognize and respond to toxic behaviors happening within their online communities.
Aber Whitcomb
CTO and Co-Founder of Jam City
Aber Whitcomb is co-founder and CTO of Jam City, where he oversees the software architecture underlying the company’s global gaming and analytics platform. Director and Co-founder at Core Scientific.
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About Core Scientific, i/o Ventures, Jam City: Jam City is a mobile entertainment company, connecting the world through technology, creativity, and play.
Chris DeWolfe
CEO & Co-Founder of Jam City
Chris DeWolfe is co-founder and CEO of Jam City, a global leader in mobile entertainment that provides social gaming experiences for millions of players around the world. Prior to Jam City, Chris co-founded and served as CEO of MySpace, where he popularized social networking and revolutionized the music industry. The site, formed in 2004, became the most visited in the U.S. by 2006 with 90 million members. When Chris left the company in 2009, MySpace had more than 130 million monthly active users around the world. Chris received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2015 and the Producers Guild of America’s Vanguard award in 2009. TIME included him among its 2006 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Barbara Walters named him one of her 10 Most Fascinating People in 2007. He studied finance at the University of Washington and attended the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, which honored him in 2006 with its Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year award. Chris is an advisor at USC’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a board member of Uproxx Media Group. He lives in Los Angeles with his family and actively participates in animal rescue operations.
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About Jam City: Jam City is a mobile entertainment company, connecting the world through technology, creativity, and play.
Josh Yguado
President, COO & Co-Founder of Jam City
Josh Yguado is co-founder, COO and President of Jam City, where he oversees the company’s operations, growth strategies and game portfolio – which has repeatedly dominated the top grossing charts of the Apple and Google Play stores. Before launching Jam City, Josh was Vice President at Fox Entertainment, where he helped Fox in its acquisition of MySpace, its creation of Hulu and its launch of new television networks. His career also includes working at MTV Networks and Univision. Among other honors, SoCalTech named Josh one of its top “50 Most Influential People” in Southern California’s technology industry. A board member of The Young Turks, he received his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Harvard University. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.
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About Jam City: Jam City is a mobile entertainment company, connecting the world through technology, creativity, and play.
Ilya Rachman
Co-Founder & CEO of Immix Biopharma
Ilya Rachman is a physician-scientist and clinical faculty at UCLA. He received both his MD and PhD in neuroscience and cell biology from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and his MBA from UCLA Anderson. Previous to Immix, Dr. Rachman founded a clinical research organization that conducted clinical trials on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. He has completed several clinical trials as a Principal Investigator and is a co-inventor of Immix’ platform therapeutic technology.
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About Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Immix Biopharma: Immix Biopharma is a biotech company that develops treatments for cancer and other inflammation-driven diseases.
Armando Kirwin
Co-Founder of Artie
Armando is co-founder of Artie, a platform for next-gen games powered by AI. He is one of the most experienced technologists in the field of interactive entertainment and has worked at the highest levels in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. He has worked with and for some of biggest media and tech companies in the world.
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About Artie: A Web3 mobile gaming company. Play on social media. No app download needed.
Mike Uyama
Co-Founder & Event Director of Games Done Quick
Mike Uyama is Co-Founder & Event Director at Games Done Quick.
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About Consultant, Games Done Quick: Games Done Quick is a charity video game marathon.
Sumit Gupta
Co-Founder & CEO of Boom.tv
Sumit Gupta is an Advisor at Boom Fantasy and Founder & CEO at Boom.tv. He is a 3x Entrepreneur (multiple exits), Angel Investor and Mentor. Founded 3 companies. Invested in 50+ startups including Discord, G2 eSports, BlockChain Capital, Blockstream, Blockcypher, Filecoin, Wag, Classpass, OpenDoor, HoneyBook, Managed-by-Q, Dishcraft Robotics. Mr. Gupta also runs Piazza eSports Ventures with pa articular focus on investments and incubating startups Infusing tech into eSports and Game Streaming. Investments include Discord, Vulcun/StreamLabs, BitKraft, G2 Esports. Startup Portfolio includes DrDisRespect stream team, Boom.tv, Rolocule Games, Boom Fantasy Previously, He served as a Founder & CEO of Bash Gaming, took the mobile gaming company to annual revenue of $75M, profitable and sold it to GSN for $170M. Previously as founder CEO of BitRhymes Apps, top 10 app developers in social space. Before that, I was part of founding team at Business Signatures that was sold to Entrust for $55M
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About afkVR, Boom.tv: BoomTV is an Esports entertainment platform that provides tools to automate score tracking, streaming, and generating event hubs.
Vijay Koduri
Co-Founder of Sizzle
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About HashCut, Sizzle: Sizzle.gg leverages AI to automatically create gaming highlights from Twitch and YouTube livestreams.
Murali Raju
Co-Founder of Sizzle
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About HashCut, Sizzle: Sizzle.gg leverages AI to automatically create gaming highlights from Twitch and YouTube livestreams.
Jerome Scholler
Co-Founder of Osmo
Jerome Scholler is Co-founder of Osmo, and he is deeply passionate about the intersection of creative design, education and technology. He is a seasoned engineer from the game industry, having previously worked at Lucasarts and Ubisoft and worked on the user interface of Chrome for Android at Google.
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About Osmo: Osmo is an interactive play company bringing harmony between physical and digital.
William McClelland
Co-Founder & Partner of Elizabeth Street Ventures
Co-founder & Partner at Elizabeth Street Ventures, an early stage investment firm focused on the digital consumer and next generation brands Co-founder of Bambike, a bamboo bicycle manufacturer and tour operator with an environmental & social mission based in the Philippines Prior to founding Elizabeth Street, I was a Partner at Grace Beauty Capital, a Managing Director/Portfolio Manager at Ironwood Capital Management and a Tech-Investment Banking Analyst at Lehman Brothers Investor @ Bambike, Birchbox, Costa Brazil, Current, Eloquii, Events.com, Glamsquad, High Court, MM. LaFleur, Parachute Home, Perch Interactive, Pixlee, Primary.com, Ringly, Rothy’s, SKU IQ, Sourceeasy, Supergoop!, ThirdLove, Trendalytics, Vengo. Graduated from Yale University with a BA double major in Economics and Anthropology.
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About Elizabeth Street Ventures: We are an early stage investment firm focused on the digital consumer and next generation brands that improve daily life
Pratap Ranade
CEO and Co-Founder of Arena
Pratap Ranade joined Arena as CEO and Co-Founder.
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About Arena: Arena is a software firm that builds active learning systems and techniques like reinforcement learning.
Shaunt Sarkissian
Founder & Executive Chairman of X Co
Shaunt Sarkissian is a highly accomplished payments executive, entrepreneur, and Founder, and CEO of ID-TX, Inc. Prior to founding ID-TX, Shaunt was Chief Innovation Officer, Global Head of Payments, IP, and Corporate Development at TBOL. and previously was EVP – Head of Payments division at Uphold, Inc. (following the acquisition of Cortex MCP by Uphold, Inc.). Shaunt was the founder, CEO and a director on the Board of Directors of Cortex MCP – provider of a next-generation mobile wallet payment platform that unlocks the potential of the rapidly evolving mobile commerce market. Cortex MCP was acquired by Uphold, Inc. in February of 2018. Prior to founding Cortex MCP in 2012, Shaunt was the vice president of strategic business development at ROAM Data, Inc., an early mover in the mobile POS solutions market. At ROAM Data, Shaunt led the company’s client acquisition strategy and spearheaded relationships with key ROAM clients, including PayPal, Groupon, Google and others. Previously, Shaunt founded Sarkcom Corporation where he spearheaded the drafting of four innovative US patents which form the basis of the Cortex platform. In addition, Shaunt served in a range of sales, business development and corporate strategy roles with CyberSource and FEI Company.
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About ID-TX, X Co: Accelerating early stage startups in emerging US technology regions
Sharky Laguana
Founder & CEO of Bandago
Sharky Laguana is the CEO/founder of Bandago, a unique van rental company offering passenger vans with Wi-Fi, video screens, game consoles, custom seating and more. The company caters to bands, families, corporations, sports teams, churches, and any group of people looking for comfortable ground travel solutions. He serves on the board of the American Car Rental Association (representing 98% of the car rental industry), is on the advisory board of Perfect Price (price optimization using machine learning), and has invested in and advised several other tech startups. He is the founder, guitarist and co-songwriter for the indie rock band Creeper Lagoon (SPIN magazine’s Best New Artist 1997) which released several critically acclaimed records on Dreamworks in the late 90’s, and recently reunited for a string of sold out shows after an 18 year hiatus. Over the past two years Sharky authored a series of essays (beginning with “How To Make Streaming Royalties Fair(er)” which explored how the methods currently used to calculate streaming royalties are inefficient, and brought attention to an alternative approach that addresses those inefficiencies. The humorous essays went viral, and the subsequent discussions they generated has led to a great deal more writing and research on this topic, and at least one major streaming service (Deezer) deciding to employ these methods.
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About Bandago: Bandago is a passenger van rental company featuring vans with Wi-Fi, LCD screens, game consoles, and customized seating.
Michael Weiksner
Co-Founder and CTO of Pocketful of Quarters
Michael Weiksner is the Co-Founder and CTO of Pocketful of Quarters. He also serves as Chairman of e-thepeople.org and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Princeton University. He enjoys spending time with his wife and four kids.
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About EndlessTV, Pocketful of Quarters, SocialFeet, Tip or Skip: Pocketful of Quarters is a universal virtual currency platform for gaming, usable across different games and platforms.
Jesse Reich
CEO And Founder of Splinterlands
Jesse Reich is the CEO And Founder at Splinterlands.
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About Splinterlands: Splinterlands is a decentralized, digital collectible trading card game built on blockchain technology.
Shail Mehta
Co-Founder, CEO of Last Gameboard
Shail has a passion for gaming. She has a financial background working for hedge funds and venture capital funds, she has consulted for the Nuclear Regulatory Committee, City University of New York, City & County of Denver ‘s $254M RTA project and Triunity Engineering. She has managed teams and executed projects throughout her career. Shail is the driving force for the vision and future for TLG.
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About Last Gameboard: Last Gameboard is creating a digital tabletop gaming platform that merges physical and digital play experiences.
Yitao Guan
Co-Founder & CTO of FunPlus
Yitao Guan, Founder and CTO of FunPlus, is a technology enthusiast passionate about social, mobile, cloud and data. Prior to founding FunPlus, he worked as a software architect for more than 15 years with leading technology companies, including IBM and Ask.com, where he was responsible for building worldclass infrastructure accessible from anywhere with the capacity to process hundreds of millions requests every day. Yitao received both a Bachelor and Master of Science degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
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About FunPlus: FunPlus is a leading global developer and publisher of free-to-play mobile games
Adil Virani
Co-Founder of Blitz App
Adil Virani is the Co-Founder at Blitz.
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About Blitz App: Your personal gaming coach for League of Legends, Valorant, CSGO, Fortnite and more— powered by AI and built with professional players.
Andy Dinh
Co-Founder and CEO of Blitz App
Andy Dinh is the founder and CEO at Blitz App.
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About Blitz App, Team SoloMid: Your personal gaming coach for League of Legends, Valorant, CSGO, Fortnite and more— powered by AI and built with professional players.
Harlan Crystal
Founder, CTO of Pocket Gems
Harlan Crystal is the Co-founder and CTO of Pocket Gems, a leading developer of mobile games and entertainment. Harlan oversees the company’s technology initiatives and lead development on WAR DRAGONS, Pocket Gems’ first game with 3D graphics and synchronous multiplayer over mobile networks. Before founding Pocket Gems, Harlan was VP of Engineering at Smartleaf. He has hacked for many stage startups in the computer vision, compilers, embedded-realtime, bioinformatics and financial software.Harlan holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University.
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About Pocket Gems: Pocket Gems’ mission is to be one of the world’s great creators of innovative interactive entertainment on mobile.
Behrooz Abiri
CTO and Co-Founder of GuRu
A hardware hobbyist and International Physics Olympiad gold medalist – Behrooz has always been an avid inventor. He’s spent his life studying, learning, and exploring emerging technologies. His work at GuRu stems from a wish to share miraculous technology with the world at large. At GuRu, Behrooz is responsible for the ongoing development of core technology and system architecture. Under his leadership, GuRu’s millimeter-wave technology has been developed into an accessible consumer product. Before GuRu, Behrooz helped develop system design and architecture in Caltech’s Space Solar Power Initiative. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech.
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About GuRu: Enables safe, effective and customizable transmission of power over-the-air using proprietary mmWave and Smart RF Lensing technology
Florian Bohn
CEO & Co-Founder of GuRu
Florian has always felt compelled to understand the way the world works. His curiosity moved him to study Electrical Engineering at Caltech (B.S. Cum Laude), to receive an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech. At GuRu, Florian is thrilled to be building technology that will enrich people’s lives on a global scale. He is also proud to be building a community of passionate and like-minded engineers at the organization. As a co-founder and CEO at GuRu, Florian brings years of technology experience. At Axiom Microdevices, he helped define and implement high-frequency RF integrated circuits which have shipped more than 400 million units. At Agilent Laboratories (formerly HP Labs) he worked on clock and data recovery circuits as well as novel test and measurement systems. As a Caltech Lead Scientific Researcher, Florian guided engineering and operational aspects of implementing the microwave system at Caltech’s Space Solar Power Initiative.
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About GuRu: Enables safe, effective and customizable transmission of power over-the-air using proprietary mmWave and Smart RF Lensing technology
Amy Wan
Founder and CEO of Bling
Amy Wan, Esq., is CEO of Bling, a bitcoin rewards platform. Previously, she has been a Partner as securities law firms, general counsel at fintech platforms, and founded Bootstrap Legal, a real estate syndication legal document automation platform. She hosts The Law and Blockchain Podcast (a podcast through the American Bar Association) and has authored the Bloomberg Law practice guide to ICOs and Lexis Nexus’ Private Equity practice guide. Amy founded Legal Hackers LA, which programs around the intersection of law and technology; was named one of ten women to watch in legal technology by the American Bar Association Journal in 2014 and one of 18 millennials changing legaltech by law.com in 2018; and was nominated as a Finalist for the Corporate Counsel of the Year Award 2015 by LA Business Journal. Amy has also worked in international regulatory and trade policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and was a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Transportation. She holds an LL.M. in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Southern California.
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About Bling, Bootstrap Legal: Bling allows users to earn bitcoin rewards by playing games.
Matt Bailey
Founder and CEO of GameOn
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About GameOn: The future of engaging superfans. If it’s on, it’s on.
Derek Liu
Founder/CTO of Gaia Online
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About Gaia Online: Gaia Online owns and operates online gaming platforms, and designs, develops, and markets mobile games.
Greg Selkoe
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of XSET
Greg Selkoe currently works as Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at XSET.
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About HuffPost, PLNDR.com, XSET: XSET is an Esports Company that organizes popular titles such as Call of Duty, Valorant, and Fortnite.
Marco Mereu
COO and Co-Founder of XSET
Senior Executive experience in esports, SaaS marketplaces, user acquisition, game monetization, analytics, retention, social Influencer and brand marketing
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About XSET: XSET is an Esports Company that organizes popular titles such as Call of Duty, Valorant, and Fortnite.
Wil Eddins
Co-Founder and Chief of Merchandising and Licensing of XSET
Wil Eddins currently works as Co-Founder and Chief of Merchandising and Licensing at XSET.
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About XSET: XSET is an Esports Company that organizes popular titles such as Call of Duty, Valorant, and Fortnite.
Cameron Brown
CCO & Co-Founder of Rec Room
Cameron Brown is co-founder and CCO of Against Gravity, makers of the popular social VR app Rec Room. Cam has worked in video games for over twenty years (Pandemic Studios, Beam Software), and was also a creative director on the Microsoft HoloLens program. He believes the future of computing is social, physical, and very exciting!
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About Rec Room: Rec Room is an online universe that enables users to play and create games with friends.
Nick Fajt
CEO & Co-Founder of Rec Room
Nick Fajt is the CEO & Co-Founder of Against Gravity.
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About Rec Room: Rec Room is an online universe that enables users to play and create games with friends.
Alex Beliankin
CEO & Founder of Legionfarm
Alex Beliankin is the Chief Executive Officer at LegionFarm Group.
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About Legionfarm: Legionfarm is the metaverse employer for gamers. Our mission: 1 million new jobs in virtual worlds.
James Bower
Founder of Wikipad
James Bower is the president of MasterImage 3D, LLC.
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About Citizens Reserve, SUKU, Wikipad: Wikipad is an Android-powered gaming tablet that has the features of a high quality tablet and is tough enough to take all.
Adam Poots
Founder & Director of Kingdom Death
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About Kingdom Death: Kingdom Death’s world is immensely deep and brutally challenging.
Jong-Wook Shin
Founder, President and CEO of iiRcade
Results-driven, customer and consumer-focused executive with vision, dedication and drive to succeed. Visionary leader with strong entrepreneurship and innovation experiences as a founding CEO of an award-winning startup and vice president of innovations at LG Electronics. Winner of 2018 CES Innovation Award and Startup of the Year finalist recognitions at CES, IFA, Smart Kitchen Summit, Startup Conference. Recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious ‘Outstanding Top 45 Asian American in Business’ award in 2010 and Sony Mobile Presidential Award in 2011. 22+ years of experiences in the consumer electronics and mobile industry, leading organizations and creating innovative products with amazing experiences at Motorola, Sony Mobile, Intel, LG and HOPii. 16+ years of experiences in product management, product planning, product strategy, portfolio management, business strategies and business management. 18+ years of team management experiences and 8+ years of executive leadership experiences. 12+ years of strong experiences in disruptive innovations and entrepreneurship with startup experiences, new experience products and disruptive innovations creation accomplishments. Comprehensive knowledge and experiences in managing products from concept to launch and beyond. Strong business and technical skills. A dynamic self-starter with proven ability to resolve complex challenges in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment. Extensive experiences in customer and vendor management, and managing projects in both matrix organizations and startup environment. Excellent leadership skills from various executive leadership experiences. Kellogg MBA. Excellent people skills and highly persuasive negotiator. Strong communication and presentation skills. Great team player who is very dependable, very hard working and always makes a difference. Committed to professional excellence and success.
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About iiRcade: Bringing Arcade Gaming to the 21st Century
Andrew Lacy
Co-Founder and Director of Azarus
At Zaptravel, reinventing travel search through semantics, content and a commitment to beautiful products. Andrew is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and advisor to startup companies. He is currently based in Europe but commute frequently to the Silicon Valley. He is presently working on Zaptravel, a disruptive personalization travel meta-search business. Zaptravel help people who don’t know when or where they want to go to great travel deals that match their interests and the experiences they want to have. Previously, he has been a Senior Vice-President at the Walt Disney Company responsible for operating their mobile development studios and outsourced development across the world and developing many transformational mobile products for the Group. He was a consultant at McKinsey & Company for 6 years where he consulted clients on technological solution to big data and collaboration challenges and investment and operational issues in the airline industry. Andrew has Law and Economic degrees from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from Stanford Business School. Some special skills: social gaming & mobile monetization, iOS & Android mobile launch, marketing, monetization strategies, building businesses around cloud/redis.
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About Azarus, Zaptravel: Azarus is a new game challenge network that allows Gamers and Streamers to engage with each other in unprecedented ways.
Alexander Casassovici
Co-Founder & CEO of Azarus
Alexander is a serial entrepreneur with a strong experience in the mobile and consumer electronics industry. Based in Paris, France, he holds both a telecommunication engineer degree and an MBA. He created notably : * WaveStorm : wireless security solutions and wireless connected devices (including Meccano/Erector’s Spykee spy robot) * Kamayo : rich media mobile agency sold to Streamezzo group * VR-Wear : virtual reality headsets for the gaming industry Highly business oriented he also acts as a consultant for VCs during due-diligence phases and as a business angel.
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About actvt, Azarus, Diveboard, Mobitrends, Showdown.cc: Azarus is a new game challenge network that allows Gamers and Streamers to engage with each other in unprecedented ways.
Erik Whiteford
Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Azarus
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About Azarus: Azarus is a new game challenge network that allows Gamers and Streamers to engage with each other in unprecedented ways.
Alex Casassovici
Co-Founder and CEO of Azarus
Alex is the founding partner of Bitflare Technologies, a blockchain-focused consulting firm specializing in blockchain architecture & token design. His previous venture, Showdown.cc, revolutioned the way game telemetry is used to build in-game communities. He’s an international speaker to world class events such as GDC.
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About Azarus, Diveboard: Azarus is a new game challenge network that allows Gamers and Streamers to engage with each other in unprecedented ways.
Jeremy Zimmer
Founder of United Talent Agency
Jeremy Zimmer is one of the Hollywood agency’s 6 owners and is a UTA co-founder and managing director. The grandson of legendary Hollywood studio chief Dory Schary began his career at age 19 in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency. After moving to Los Angeles in 1984, he joined ICM and eventually ran both the Motion Picture Literary and Motion Picture Packaging departments. Zimmer was asked to leave ICM for an infamous episode when he told an Industry gathering that the agency profession was engaged in “raping and pillaging”. He became a partner at the Bauer/Benedek Agency, and in 1991 he helped found United Talent Agency through a merger of Bauer/Benedek and Leading Artists Agency. Clients represented by Zimmer include Andrew Adamson, Noah Baumbach, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher Guest, Curtis Hanson, Jimmy Hayward, Anthony Hopkins, Barry Levinson, director-producer Frank Marshall, Peter Morgan, director-producer Brian Robbins, Chris Wedge, as well as verge culture retailer Karmaloop and HiT Entertainment. Zimmer is also involved in United Entertainment Group, the joint venture company formed with advertising veteran Jarrod Moses, which is among the industry’s largest independent branded entertainment and integrated media firms. Zimmer’s official bio credits him with establishing UTA’s Branding, Licensing & Endorsements division as well as UTAOnline and UTA’s Agent Trainee Program.
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About United Talent Agency, UTA Ventures: United Talent Agency is a talent and literary agency representing actors, writers, directors, producers, recording artists and more.
Peter Benedek
Founder of United Talent Agency
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About United Talent Agency: United Talent Agency is a talent and literary agency representing actors, writers, directors, producers, recording artists and more.
Kirin Sinha
CEO & Founder of Illumix
Kirin Sinha, 25, is the founder and CEO of Illumix, a Lightspeed and Maveron backed AR gaming and technology company focused on developing adaptive and immersive experiences for the mobile phone. Previously, she founded SHINE for Girls, a national nonprofit targeted at encouraging middle school girls to pursue the study of mathematics. Not your typical gamer or CEO, Kirin is a Marshall Scholar and holds Masters degrees with honors in mathematics and statistics focused on machine learning, specifically computer vision, from the University of Cambridge and LSE respectively. She received a degree in electrical engineering / computer science and mathematics from MIT, and her MBA from Stanford University.
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About Illumix: Illumix develops augmented reality games.
Guthrie Dolin
Co-Founder of Double Crown Gaming Co.
Guthrie Dolin is a seasoned design executive and a serial entrepreneur. He has founded two award-winning design innovation consultancies and partnered to launch numerous brands/businesses. Currently, Guthrie is consulting and advising early-stage companies on product, design experience and brand strategy. Guthrie also lectures at the Institute of Design at Stanford (the d.school) on branding and design innovation for entrepreneurs.
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About Double Crown Gaming Co.: Purveyors of Friendly Competition
Oded Pelled
CEO & Co-Founder of MindKick
President & Co-Founder of VidCrunch, an ad-tech company specializing in turning static content into engaging and monetizable videos. CEO & Co-Founder of MindKick, a mobile gaming studio specialized in social and competitive skill-based games.
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About MindKick, NovoRoll, VidCrunch: MindKick is a mobile gaming company that launches and operates a portfolio of theme-based gaming communities.
Kwang Won Sok
Founder, CEO of Kong Studios
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About Kong Studios: Kong Studios is a gaming company that designs and develops games with narratives and novel game mechanics.
