21Ventures Seeds Cognisafe

Cognisafe, an Israel-based provider of anti-cheating software for online games, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from 21Ventures.

PRESS RELEASE

21Ventures, a U.S. based venture capital firm, announced today a seed investment in CogniSafe Ltd. – an Israeli company providing real-time anti-cheat software solution for online games .

The funding is earmarked for sales and marketing and ongoing product development.

“CogniSafe brings an exciting new approach to solve the cheating problem in online games, a problem which causes significant losses to gaming companies and harms the players ability to enjoy the challenge and adventure of a cheat-free game environment. Just like online banking and commerce services, the online gaming industry is vulnerable to fraud and cheating, but no real time solution has been presented so far to solve the cheating problem. We believe that CogniSafe solution will become the standard in detection and prevention of cheating in online games and we are happy to be among the first to identify CogniSafe potential” said David Anthony, Managing Partner of 21Ventures.

The cheating problem in online games causes game providers to remove tens of thousands of paying players every month, due to suspected cheating. The removal is usually done following a complaint from other players, or after a post mortem analysis of player’s actions. In addition a significant number of legitimate players abandon some game titles, and cease paying, when they feel they have been cheated.

CogniSafe’s solution enables online game providers to detect, in real time, any deviation from proper gaming procedures by the online players, and remove cheaters from participation in the game, thus makes cheating attempts futile and enables other players to continue and enjoy a cheat-free gaming experience.

“There is a clear need in the market for a real-time solution that will enable the gaming companies to really understand the magnitude of the cheating phenomena, gather evidence against cheaters, and remove them from the game before they affect the gaming experience for other players ”, said Izik Shimon, CEO of CogniSafe. Izik continues “We are already engaged with several leaders in the online gaming industry, which understand the potential of increasing the integrity of their games and avoiding significant losses, by working with CogniSafe”.

About 21Ventures

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York, 21Ventures is a venture capital fund which invests in seed, early stage and PIPE (Private Investments in Public Equities) technology companies in the security, clean energy and mobile software markets.  21Ventures has over $250 million in committed capital, in 24 companies in Israel and the United States.  Approximately half of 21Ventures investments are in clean energy companies.

About CogniSafe, Ltd.

Founded in 2006, CogniSafe provides a real-time software solution for detection of cheatings in online games. By employing CogniSafe’s solution with any online game, the game provider can have real time insight into the cheating phenomena and can shut down the accounts of cheaters, not by way of “post-mortem” analysis, but rather while the cheating occu