GameCo, Inc., the New York-based startup company that introduced the first skill-based, video game-style gambling machines last fall in Atlantic City, is raising money for expansion, the company’s co-founder and CEO said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The plan is to raise as much as $30 million to fund production of new games and expansion into new gaming markets.
“We are just starting on our next round now with the target of raising $20 million to $30 million depending on market conditions,” GameCo CEO Blaine Graboyes told the newspaper.
Graboyes has relocated to Las Vegas to concentrate on securing Nevada approval and placement in Las Vegas Strip casinos for GameCo’s Video Game Gambling Machines, or VGMs. Last month, the VGM was certified by Gaming Laboratories International under the GLI-11 standard.
The first VGMs were first-person shooter games housed in arcade-style cabinets with attached video game controllers. However, the company is working on a wide range of games that employ skill, from mobile-style puzzle games to basketball-shooting games to branded games under a recently inked agreement with Paramount. The company also is developing a variety of action, fighting, racing and flying themes.
In addition to Nevada and other U.S. markets, Graboyes hopes to take the VGM to Macau, where he will open an office later this month from which he will meet with operators and regulators in the SAR.
