A new gaming-focused startup incubator and accelerator has launched in Montreal with $1.4 million in funding and the involvement of several videogame-industry luminaries.
Execution Labs announced it was open for applications yesterday. It’s looking to take teams of experienced game developers create and launch their own games and then spin out into a new development studio. Its seed round of funding has been lead by BDC Venture Capital, with Real Ventures and White Star Capital also pitching in.
Teams selected to take part in the program will receive seed funding, shared office space, development tools, and access to mentors. There is a longer-than-usual lease on the use of the office space at this incubator. Teams will be given marketing funds and support for customer acquisition until they gain market traction and they’re ready to form a studio of their own.
Jason Della Rocca is one of Execution Lab’s co-founders.
Execution Labs also has a partnership with GameStop, described as the world’s largest multi-channel video game retailer. The retailer has voiced the support of its global market presence to support the new incubator.
The co-founders behind Execution Labs include Jason Della Rocca, Keith Katz, and Alexandre Pelletier-Normand. Della Rocca has been the executive director of the International Game Developers Association and has operated his own game industry consultant business. Katz was vice-president of monetization at OpenFeitn, a mobile social gaming network that was acquired by GREE. He’ll be running the incubator’s business functions from San Francisco. Pelletier-Normand has started several game development studios at locations around the world, and has lead the development team at Gameloft.
Mentors involved with Execution Labs include Ed Fries, vice-president of game publishing at Microsoft known for his role in Xbox.
In August, Della Rocca told ITBusiness.ca an indie videgame incubator is exactly what Canada needs.
“Despite being an extremely successful and well-known country for game development, a majority of that production is done for multi-nationals,” he says. “You could say it’s a glorified sweat shop to a certain extent.”
At that time, he said the incubator would look for teams of between two and five that are developing mobile games, but haven’t yet created a corporate structure.