Akoha, a startup working on a “new type of multiplayer online/offline social game”, has raised $1.9 Million in funding from angel investors. The company won’t release details about the exact nature of their game until this Fall, but they have stated that it was inspired by “elements of social entrepreneurship, massively multiplayer and reality-based games.” As far as we can tell, it will mix user-generated content with casual gaming elements, both online and in the real world (think geo-tagged photos taken on a cell phone). People will play for both fun and charity.
Akoha was founded by Austin Hill and Alex Eberts, who together co-founded Zero-Knowledge Systems (now Rdadialpoint) in 1997. Among the Canadian angel investors are David Chamandy (co-founder, Lavalife), Ron Dembo (founder, Zerofootprint.net), film producer Jake Eberts (Chariots of Fire, Ghandi), and seed fund Montreal Start Up.
Correct $1.9 with $1.9Mn in the title
The future is bright for web Start-ups that have unique plan and service. Different and good innovations always find there way to success and yes, big giants takeovers too
$1.9? I give them $5!
@Mjdgard
Thanks for the $5 offer - but we did raise $1.9 million so we are feeling more comfortable then just having raised $1.90
You must be having fun Austin. Best of luck
Congrats Guys, great to see a Canadian startup get some funding in this angel startup challenged country. I look forward to the good karma this app…brings to the market.
Trying to find some good angels in western Canada that get good karma projects as my early stage startup is also about the good versus the greed.
Best of luck
May be you can learn to spell Gandhi right!
Congrats Austin!
I’ve seen some sneak previews of Akoha and its pretty killer. Can’t wait until the launch!
Anyone else notice huge crossovers between the design of Akoha and Cambrian House? Not that it detracts from their business model, or the great news of their investment $. I just find it interesting he’s so blatantly copy the ‘uniqueness’ of Cambrian House’s design.
Congrats on the company — Also, why will people want to play? There will need to be a conditional psychological component to this for people to become addicted and for others to tell their friends.
Why would people play for charity ?
Congrats Austin and Alex! This is awesome!
Best,
Tyler Cavell
http://www.MediaScrape.com
“Choose News”
Thanks Tyler. We appreciate the kudos. Congrats on your recent financing as well.
@Codeshepherd and @Miles(SEM iCluck)
You both ask a very good question. Ultimately we believe people will play for a number of reasons, but in the end they all need to amount to having fun.
If play isn’t fun, then regardless of the ‘reason’ people start to play it won’t scale and they won’t share the experience widely with their friends.
Charitable & positive social goals may cause some people to take notice of a project - but we recognize that if users don’t have fun they won’t keep coming back.
Sign up for the beta if you’d like to get an invite - we would be happy to get our feedback on whether you think Akoha is fun for you when we open up the site to testers.
@Anand - Thanks for the congrats.
Can’t wait to meet up and show you the latest builds and progress we’ve made since our last meeting.