iOpener Media GmbH (Germany) - Jan 2008

unquote
01 January 2008

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Triangle Venture Capital Group has raised €4.1m in a Series A financing for real-time game engine company iOpener. It is the first venture capital-backed European Space Agency (ESA) spin-off in satellite applications. The contact was sourced through the investor’s network and contacts to ESA. iOpener has developed a technology to map real-world competitions such as Formula 1 to an artificial world, allowing gamers to participate in the race virtually and in real time. Their first product is based on innovations from the ESA, which allow the efficient transmission of telemetric data from a plurality of moving objects and their mapping into the game’s virtual world. The trend of increasing interactivity in gaming supports the product.

ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) supported iOpener during 2007. The new funding enables the company to build and expand distribution and further develop products after its prototype, called ‘Real Time Engine’. New funding is likely to be sought towards the end of 2009.

Company

iOpener Media GmbH is headquartered in Aachen, Germany, and Delft, the Netherlands. The company’s product enables virtual-world participants to ‘take part’ in real-world competitions. For example, gamers could race live against professionals. This might increase the target audience of traditional sports events.

People

The investment was facilitated by Triangle’s board of advisers member Joerg Kreisel (JKIC, Germany), a space commercialisation and finance expert. Uli W Fricke acted on behalf of Triangle.

Advisers

Company - TeekensKarstens, Kees van Oosten (Legal)Equity - Foley & Lardner, Sven Riethmüller (Other Due Diligence)Equity - Osborne Clarke, Axel Tophoven, Nicolas Gabrysch (Corporate Finance)Equity - Osborne Clarke, Konstantin Ewald (Technical/IT Advice)Equity - Osborne Clarke, Jörg Ottersbach, Stephan Knaack (Tax)

Sourced from: Deutsche unquote" 95 (Feb 2008)