Our investment in Rotterdam-based Gameye as part of their $1.6m seed round 

We’re delighted to announce our investment in Gameye, the API that provides game studios and esports platforms with cost-effective and scalable solutions required to operate live multiplayer sessions, as part of their $1.6m seed round alongside Makers Fund and Niccolo Maisto, CEO of competitive gaming platform FACEIT.

Gameye has also attracted the interest of Craig Fletcher, founder of Global Service Provider and esports event organizer Multiplay, which was sold to UK retailer GAME in 2015 for £20m, who joins as an advisor.

Established in 2017 by Founder Sebastiaan Heijne and Co-founders Elmer Bulthuis, Ralph Heersink and Denise Helderop, Gameye created an API tailored to esports matchmaking platforms and quickly recognized a wider problem faced by many game studios looking to create a stable infrastructure required for multiplayer sessions. Studios were spending significant resources to ensure their games could handle spikes in play as well as deployment systems. Gameye’s technology means studios can focus on developing great games with multiplayer functionality without the pressure of developing systems needed for multiplayer sessions internally thus enabling their games to ship sooner. For platform holders who traditionally require players to provide their own match servers, Gameye negates this need and makes entry to play easier for gamers.

Sebastiaan Heijne, CEO of Gameye remarked: “We’ve heard of too many studios facing the same problem.  With Gameye we’re hoping to give our customers piece of mind that they are getting the most cost-efficient and effective hosting solution available so they can focus on creating great games. We want to see more games make it to market and more opportunities to grow the competitive gaming scene.”  

On the investment, our partner, Sia Houchangnia, comments: “The gaming industry is booming and rapidly moving to the cloud. Gameye perfectly fits our thesis of investing in pick-and-shovel businesses that will play a central role in this transition. The opportunity ahead is massive and Gameye has a truly passionate team of experts that are perfectly positioned to size it.”

Visit Gameye.com for more information

At Seedcamp our thesis is around investing in companies using technology to solve real problems. No more is that more true than with our latest investment, TaxScouts, out to save millions from the last minute panic and dread of filling out their tax return with a much-needed ‘tax-preparation’ solution.

We’re delighted to invest in the £1.2m seed round alongside Speedinvest and Finch Capital as TaxScouts build out their platform powered by automation and a network of accountants, enabling an efficient turn-around time of just 1-2 days for all your tax filings.

On the investment, our Partner, Tom Wilson, comments: “When you look at last year’s tax returns stats you see that a solution to the old issue of stressing out over your taxes and leaving everything to the last minute was long overdue. We cannot wait to see what this funding will enable them to achieve as a company and all the benefits that will come along to taxpayers and accountants.”

The TaxScouts platform is proving popular with individuals and accountants alike, with the client management system for accountants helping accounting partners to save 3-5 days of work per month.

With the new funding raised, TaxScouts is looking to quadruple its network of accountant partners by the end of 2019 and, longer-term, to reduce the workload of accountants by 80% through further process automation and digital data processing.