LIVE-PITCHING SESSION

The Live-Pitching session of the Nordic Game Conference will be back for 2014 - more info will folow soon.

Meanwhile, here's what we did for the 2013 edition:

Here's the latest, and very exciting, news about the event:

Dragons Vs The Crowd:
Crowdfunding campaign to underpin the Nordic Live-Pitching competition at Nordic Game Conference - Finalists announced

In a new development, the Nordic Game Conference Live-Pitch event, now in its 4th year, will be supported by a crowdfunding initiative:

The initiative is the brainchild and is managed by Swedish private crowdfunding initiative Framtidslyftet, set up to support the financing of high growth tech companies in Sweden, but who has extended its remit for this campaign, to cover the whole Nordic region.

“The Nordic game sector is buzzing with activity and we are both proud and excited bringing crowdfunding to the Nordic Game Programme’s Live Pitch”, says Mats Johansson, the founder of Framtidslyftet.  “Lets give the crowd the chance to challenge the experts in deciding which game rules supreme.”

http://www.framtidslyftet.se/projects/the-nordic-game-live-pitch/

The finalists for the Nordic Game Live-Pitching event have been announced. They are:

Locatify – Iceland
Megapop – Norway
Lohica – Denmark
Ozma – Sweden

They will be joined at the Live Pitch by Non- Nordic companies (who do not qualify for the crowd funding):
Zoopaheroes – UK
Spitzeljagd – Germany/Estonia

Dragons vs the Crowd!
For the first time, both the audience at the conference and the donors to the crowdfunding will also get to vote.
Under the terms of the crowdfunding campaign, supporters are invited to make small donations and vote for their preferred project. A minimum contribution of 100 Swedish Kroner (12€) also secures a vote for the donor’s preferred project.

The winner this year will be chosen by an electoral college of the votes of the investor panel, the votes on the crowdfunding site and a vote by the audience in the conference session. But the winner will take all, and will be announced at Nordic Game Conference at lunchtime on Friday 24th May.

Background
The Nordic Live Pitch competition is managed by Games Capital for the Nordic Game Conference: In the event, companies are invited to submit a one page document describing the project, the team, the investment required and what’s in it for the investors. Finalists are selected and coached by Games Capital and appear at a conference session in front of a top panel of investors.

This year potential the investor panel includes Paul Heydon, Avista and London Venture Partners, Ian Baverstock, Tenshi Ventures,  Doug Richard, of the school for Start-ups, the UK governments enterprise guru, Justin Stoltzenberg of European Games Group and Mary Carty of Spoiltchild. Some of the panelists have also offered prizes to the contestants.

The Live Pitch event was one of the top 3 conference sessions last year, and the winners Boldai, were later acquired by Linden Labs, for their game ‘Blocksworld’.

Says Fred Hasson, Games Capital CEO (ex founder and CEO of UK trade Association Tiga , and founder and Chair of the  European Games Developers Federation) “ We received double the number of submissions this year, and this competition has evolved over the last 4 years into something both the conference audience and the entrepreneurs value highly. Adding and adapting crowdfunding to the mix of incentives and prizes is completely appropriate, and we are thrilled to be working with Framtidslyftet on this but we should not forget the value of pitching in front of some of the most experienced investors in games”.