EMEA – MY.GAMES Venture Capital (MGVC), the investment division of MY.GAMES, and Google have launched the second season of their joint business acceleration program for mobile game developers.
The first season was launched in November 2020, offering EMEA developers free consulting services, including expert evaluation, key metrics analysis, recommendations on step-by-step improvements, as well as advice on scaling and international expansion.
This season, MGVC allocates US$30 million for potential investments in studios and projects that have shown the potential of their team and product during the event and, according to the jury, will be able to significantly improve their results with the help of funding.
MGVC and Google recognize that to succeed in mobile development teams need support in other areas like game design, infrastructure, user acquisition, data, analytics, and how to work across different platforms.
“As a company that today unites more than 45 studios and has many years of experience in bringing successful products to the market, we are well aware of the value of mentoring and consulting for novice game developers,” says Elena Grigoryan, CMO at MY.GAMES.
“We know and love what we do, and together with our long-time reliable partner Google, we will be happy to provide all the necessary opportunities for the growth of mobile game developers. This season, we have further expanded the business acceleration campaign by forming a series of educational sessions. “
The long-standing partners have set up Game Drive with the core objective of developing the mobile gaming ecosystem and providing game developers with advice on best practices and expertise.
The accelerator format will allow gaming studios to present themselves to a group of seasoned experts and get feedback and advice on how to grow further and faster. Game Drive will also allow MGVC and Google to identify untapped talent from anywhere in the EMEA regions.
Mobile developers with games in early access or MVP on Google Play based in any EMEA region can sign up, and up to ten successful applicants will secure a place on the 2021 Game Drive programme.
MY.GAMES and Google will tailor their focus depending on each individual studios’ requirements and all the participants will take part in Game Drive Demo Day in November and receive one-on-one support sessions.
Where relevant the developers could be in receipt of financial investment drawn from the joint pool of US$30 million provided by MGVC.
“The first cohort of Game Drive showed how many talented gaming studios we have in the region. We support promising developers and help them succeed globally,” said Maxim Braverman, Sales Director at Google Russia.
“During the second cohort of our program, its participants will team up with Google and MGVC teams to work together on their games and get the opportunity to join our educational AMA sessions. We hope it will help studios improve their ongoing projects and give new ideas for the future.”
The Game Drive programme launched in 2020 and helped numerous studios bring their titles into the mobile ecosystem. During season one, teams from MGVC and Google studied more than 40 applications from developers based in Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Kuwait, Spain, Russia, and other countries.
After careful consideration, 8 projects were short-listed and their authors were invited to take part in a closed-door conference, the Game Drive Demo Day. Experts from Google and MGVC provided their comments and gave advice on what to improve in the projects and held private meetings with the developer teams for discretion.
