moviepeak is a company providing satellite telecommunication services since 2003. Their track record includes bringing the Greek national channels via satellite TV to US and their current product is none other than video on demand via satellite. They did a soft launch in February 2009 and they aim to center the service around the user (as they should). The point is for the customer to have immediate access to the content and only pay for what they actually watch – there are to be no added extra costs. The way it works there are constantly 200 films received in the customer’s hardware along with a summary, film details and a trailer at no cost. It has all the familiar DVD functionalities and a relatively easy to use interface (which also comes in Greek) – although my first impression was that the initial setup might not be straightforward. The films are auto-updated via satellite – every week 10 old films leave while 10 new arrive. Their prices vary from 3 to 1 euro depending on popularity while the cost of the hardware is approx. 200 euros. The film arrives in 1′ or so when authorised via the local ISP or a customer sent SMS and is available for 24 hrs. Moviepeak has agreements with most major studios (e.g. Warner, UIP etc) and as such their niche is blockbusters exclusively: they package all ‘current’ films of major studios also taking into account the Greek market. Other than the obvious B2C revenue stream they allow for separate B2B deals available for hotels and other similar businesses.

Total Eclipse is one of the few if not the only casual games company in Greece. They have managed to secure funding from RealArcade and their niche is casual gamers. The casual gamer profile means basically people of ages 35+ and mostly women (74%) – based on international statistics. Casual gaming is a cross platform industry including PCs, Macs but also the Wii and the iPhone and of course social networks. The current pricing of casual games is approx. 20 euros while such productions cost more than 100.000 USD to make.

Total Eclipse started of as a two-brothers company back in 2004 when the market was still relatively easier to enter. Now times are harder and only 1 out of 4 games is accepted in distribution portals. Their company has released four games so far, two of which were self-funded and the other 2 were funded by RealArcade. I particularly liked their goal of embedding the company’s identity on every game as a means to make their brand known and recognisable. Their latest release, Clockwork Man launched 2 weeks ago and we were proud to hear the exclusive announcement that in all likelihood a sequel is coming up. They make basically PC based games although they aim to release for Macs and the iPhone soon. RealArcade handles all the publishing and delivering of their games to a large number of portals where they are showcased to a significant audience. All of the development happens in Greece (Thessaloniki) with some freelancing from Hungary and USA. Currently, and with the clockwork man’s success behind them they are looking for more staff (developers, graphic artists and others) so if you always wanted to work making games visit their site and make them a call.

TANEO is an organisation aiming to fund companies and Nikos Haritakis, its CEO spoke about their latest activity: they help organise the 10th VC Forum coming up in 16-17 June. This is a two day event in which the first day Greek investors and businessmen talk about the market while the second day investores have private discussions on particular business plans submitted by entrepreneurs looking to be funded. Currently TANEO controls 150 million euros of state-related funds which have been matched by another 150 million of private funds. Although so far they have aimed for relatively mature companies (business models of magnitudes 300-500K euros) they plan to put aside approx 20M euros for startups similar to those that can come out of OpenCoffee. There is no lower limit in investments – just an upper limit of 2.5M per year. Their criteria of investment are rather subjective as ‘venture capital is not objective’ and ‘if we like the idea, we like the people’. Other than that they are more interested in small cycle investments which would ensure going through the funding process with an entrepreneur completely rather than investing in longer duration projects. So it’s as simple as that if you want your idea to get funded they are a straightforward option: just give them a call and arrange a meeting with them.

upstream is a mobile marketing company which has been around since 2001 and has actually been funded by TANEO managed to be making a 40m euros turnover this year. They have offices around the world and their main products are related to SMS services, mobile interaction with radio and TV and so on. They are an early player in this particular market and they have managed to secure as customers some major mobile network operators abroad. An element of their strategy worth considering is that they succeeded in making a marketing vehicle out of bundling together gaming, gambling and promotion in a single platform: their mobile products. Although their idea could in principle be easily reproduced as admitted by their CEO, the company’s expertise, connections and current funding allow them to stay ahead of any competition that may try to arise – either in Greece where they started from or abroad.