Ubique Networks Inc., a Sydney startup that reduces the lag in multiplayer online games, has landed venture capital funding from Toronto-based Extreme Venture Partners and Innovacorp of Halifax.
The funding announcement was one of two announced by Innovacorp on Thursday. The venture capital fund also said it provided half of a $1 million funding-raising round by Halifax-based SkySquirrel Technologies, which uses drones to assess the health of crops, especially vineyards.
The statement did not reveal how much money Ubique raised but the deal is still an interesting one for two reasons. First, it’s Extreme Venture Partners’ first investment in Atlantic Canada that we’re aware of, part of a mild wave of VC money coming into the region from Toronto. Second, Ubique appears to be the first of the one- or two-year-old IT startups in Cape Breton that has attracted private VC investment.
“We see a huge potential in the dynamic optimization technology developed by Ubique,” Ray Sharma, executive managing partner of Extreme, said in a statement. “There are more than 700 million people around the world playing multiplayer online games or engaged in e-sports and the numbers are growing.”
In multiplayer online gaming, one of the key problems is the lag caused by network congestion, and by the distance between the players and the game servers. Ubique has developed a platform called Swarmio, which drastically reduces lag through “dynamic optimization of game servers”.
Swarmio also hosts an intelligent lobby system for multiplayer and e-sports games.
“The multiplayer online games and the e-sports sectors are growing rapidly but both the publishers and the gamers want drastic reduction in lag, and that is what we are providing,” said Ubique Founder and CEO Vijai Karthigesu. “This funding will enable us to build out our user base, increase our production output and meet our global customer demands.”
There seems to be growing interest by Toronto VC funds in Atlantic Canada. The Toronto-Vancouver fund Highline recently participated in the $575,000 raise by Clean Simple of Halifax, and OMERS Ventures of Toronto last summer joined a follow-on round for Leadsift of Halifax.
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SkySquirrel had said recently that it was putting the finishing touches on a $1 million raise. The4 deal it announced Thursday comprised $500,000 contributions from both Innovacorp and an undisclosed Ontario-based private investor.
“This investment will let us ramp up to launch the next-generation of our product before the current year’s growing season is in full swing,” said SkySquirrel Co-Founder and CEO Richard Van der Put. “We’ll also be able to hit the gas on pursuing new customers in the U.S. and Europe."
The company’s initial focus is on the $85-billion global wine market. SkySquirrel’s flagship product is helping commercial vineyards improve crop yields and reduce costs, tackling stubborn viruses such as leafroll disease and flavescence doree, where often the only solution for an affected crop is to tear out the infected vines before the disease spreads to the entire field.
“SkySquirrel has developed an outstanding aerial imaging solution for the high-value wine industry, and the technology has tremendous potential for other agricultural markets as well,” said Andrew Ray, investment manager for IT at Innovacorp. “We’re proud to back this strong team and technology.”
Disclaimer: Innovacorp is a client of Entrevestor.
