Company developing a new type of multiplayer online/offline social game

    MONTREAL, April 28 /PRNewswire/ - Akoha, the developer of a new social
game, announced today that it has received $1.9 million in financing from
angel investors. The financing was delivered in two tranches, the first in
early 2007 and the second in early 2008.

    Akoha is developing a new type of social game inspired by elements of
social entrepreneurship, massively-multiplayer and reality-based games.
Akoha was founded by Austin Hill and Alex Eberts, long-time friends and
entrepreneurs who first worked together when Hill co-founded Zero-Knowledge
Systems (now Radialpoint) and Eberts served as its founding product
manager.

    Investors include some of Canada's most prominent business and
technology leaders, including:



    - David Chamandy, co-founder, Lavalife;
    - John Bromley, Benefic Group;
    - Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, entrepreneur-in-residence, Vantage Point
      Venture Partners;
    - Ron Dembo, founder, Zerofootprint.net and Algorithmics;
    - Jake Eberts, film producer;
    - Alan Gershenfeld, managing partner, E-Line Ventures, director at Games
      for Change;
    - John Meeks, managing partner, TA Associates Private Equity, London;
    - Reg Weiser, founder, Positron;
    - Jonathan Wener, Chairman & Founder, Canderel Group;
    - Robert Montgomery, founder, Achilles Media;
    - Chris Emergui, founder and president, BAM Strategy;
    - and Montreal Start Up, an angel investment fund with 20 Montreal-based
      investors and technology entrepreneurs as limited partners.

    Also investing were Austin Hill's Brudder Ventures and Alex Eberts.
    To learn more about the angel investors participating in this round,
visit http://akoha.org/blog/angels-financing.

    Akoha CEO Austin Hill said: "We're delighted that our investors share
our belief in bringing fresh ideas to the gaming world. The support of our
incredible angels has allowed us to develop an innovative product and will
support the company while we launch and build our player community into
2009."

    Alan Gershenfeld, managing partner of E-Line Ventures, who for six
years was senior vice president at Activision Studios, and is currently a
director of Games for Change, said: "Games have an enormous and largely
untapped potential for meaningful social impact. Based on my experience, I
believe Akoha's approach and design will help them become one of the
pioneers in this exciting new area."

    Details regarding Akoha's project are not being disclosed until Akoha
is available to the public in Fall 2008. Beta testers are invited to sign
up at http://akoha.org/. For more information on Akoha and to track company
news, please visit the Akoha blog at http://akoha.org/blog.

    Akoha is presenting at the 2008 Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX)
conference in Toronto on April 29 and 30. Learn more about CIX at
http://www.canadianinnovationexchange.com.

    About Akoha

    Akoha is developing a new type of social game inspired by elements of
social entrepreneurship, massively multiplayer and reality-based games. The
idea for Akoha came from a series of discussions resulting from the
founders' attendance at the TED Conference in Monterey, where the theme was
"Ideas Big Enough to Change the World," and the Sundance Film Festival in
Utah, where their friends were discussing movies that could make a
difference. Their conversations about game design, social change and
Internet trends led Hill and Eberts to ask the question, "What if playing a
game could make the world a better place?"

    Akoha co-founder Austin Hill was previously President of Zero-Knowledge
Systems, where he helped the company raise $70 million in venture capital,
grow to more than 200 employees and launch award-winning products in
consumer and enterprise markets with partners such as IBM, Nokia and
Hewlett Packard. Zero-Knowledge Systems was renamed Radialpoint in 2002 and
is one of Canada's fastest growing software companies. Hill is a venture
partner at iNovia Capital, a venture partner and board member of Montreal
Start Up and a board member of Anges Quebec.

    Akoha co-founder Alex Eberts served as Zero-Knowledge Systems' founding
product manager and VP Development from 1998 to 2001, winning the coveted
PC World "Most Promising Internet Newcomer of the Year award (2000)" for
the pioneering Freedom security and privacy software. Eberts later founded
Redwing Technology, where he performed software design and consulting for
clients including MediaNet Systems, Precision H2, Openface Internet and
Radialpoint, and worked as a videogame producer at Ubisoft where he led a
team of sixty artists and engineers at developing an original Xbox 360
title.

    For more information about Akoha, visit http://akoha.org.

Link to this page: