Eggroll Digital Studios Inc., a new mobile and software development company, is launching in the Miramichi region with an investment from the Miramichi Technology Fund, which was established by former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna.

The company will be headed by Mike White, a native Nova Scotian who studied and worked in television animation in Nova Scotia before starting a mobile gaming company in San Francisco in 2008.

“We’ll be focused primarily on developing games for mobile devices,” said White in a statement. “For now we’ll be creating iOS games for the iPhone and iPad. Eventually we would like to branch out to Android, Windows and Facebook as well.”

The Miramichi fund is colloquially known as the Frank Fund because it was established two years ago by a $1 million donation from Frank McKenna and his wife Julie to encourage tech development in the Miramichi area.

The fund so far has put money into data mining company Search2Go of Saint John, so it could open a development office in Miramichi and into a joint venture between Cube Automation and Sunny Corner Enterprises to develop remote monitoring and automation applications for the mining industry.

The fund does not reveal how much it has invested in each of these initiatives.

White is forming the company with partner and creative director Curtis Carey, from Sunny Corner, N.B. White has already made a significant personal investment financially in launching Eggroll in Miramichi, which has already created new jobs in the region, said the statement.

McKenna made his contribution to the University of New Brunswick and the fund is managed by the Wallace McCain Institute, which fosters entrepreneurship and innovation in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada.