VCs back P2P game booster

An advanced peer-to-peer networking technology, Scalify, developed over four years at National ICT Australia (NICTA) has secured $2million in VC funding as it ramps up its commercialisation.

Scalify’s core technology, Badumna, improves the delivery of multi-player online applications, such virtual environments and online games and could also be used to support large-scale applications in areas such as telehealth, involving the exchange of large datasets and bandwidth-intensive data, like 3D scans and x-rays.

Venture capital fund Starfish Ventures has tipped $2m into the project and last year Scalify also received a AUD$98,000 grant from Commercialisation Australia.

The fresh funding will be used to increase sales and marketing capability, as well as expand the number of development platforms supported by Badumna.

Starfish Investment Director Anthony Glenning, the founder of the Google acquired Tonic Systems, will join the Board of Scalify.

“The online games market is large and is growing quickly, but is hindered by the traditional client-server model which is expensive and limits scalability. We recognised Scalify’s unique solution for peer to peer games, especially in terms of scalability and reducing traffic to the server,” Glenning said.®