Company

PlaySpan™ is game industry's first publisher-sponsored™ in-game commerce™ network. PlaySpan's patent-pending in-game search, commerce and micropayment technologies enable game publishers and developers to generate new revenues, acquire new users and extend the loyalty of existing users. Leading game providers and virtual world publishers have selected PlaySpan as their official marketplace for virtual goods commerce.

PlaySpan payment solutions are offered by its subsidiary under PayByCash® brand supporting over 70 payment methods across 200 countries for the past 10 years. PayByCash’s widely distributed ULTIMATE GAME CARD® is the leading pre-paid card supported by over 200 online games and available in over 12,000 retail locations across North America and soon worldwide.

PlaySpan is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Charlottesville, VA, Cincinnati, OH and Mumbai.

Investors include Easton Capital, Menlo Ventures, STIC and Novel TMT Ventures.

Investors

Easton Capital Group

Easton Capital Group (Easton) is a venture capital firm that invests in diversified growth capital and life science opportunities through its three funds, Easton Capital Partners, L.P., Easton Hunt Capital Partners, L.P. and Easton Hunt New York LP. Easton’s investment in PlaySpan Inc. builds upon Easton’s focus on leading businesses offering innovative value-added services to the video game industry. Easton is also a lead investor in IGA Worldwide, the largest in-game advertising company with a proprietary ad serving network. Other industry focuses include new media, clean technology, consumer products and life science. Easton’s partners have more than 180 years’ experience in venture capital, having managed more than $1.5 billion in assets. Easton has offices in New York and Florida. For more information, visit www.eastoncapital.com.

Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures has spent the past 32 years investing in entrepreneurs that Think Big. With nearly $4 billion in capital and hundreds of years of collective venture and technology management experience, Menlo brings the resources and expertise necessary to help see the most ambitious visions through to success. Investments span the entire information technology landscape with stage ranging from seed to pre-IPO. Representative investments include Cavium Networks, Acme Packet, IronPort (Cisco), 3Par Data, F5 Networks, Hotmail, MobiTV, TeleNav, PlayPhone, and IMVU. For more information, please visit www.menloventures.com.

STIC International

With offices in Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Palo Alto, California, STIC International is the global investment arm of STIC Investments, Inc, one of South Korea’s leading venture capital and private equity financial groups. With over $750 million under management, STIC is one of the largest venture capital investors in Korea, targeting companies with the potential to dominate markets with revolutionary technology, products, or unique business models. STIC and its affiliates leverage their extensive networks in both Korea and the rest of Asia to provide capital, technological expertise, marketing and partnership opportunities to emerging growth companies. For more information, please visit www.sticinternational.com.

Novel TMT Ventures

Novel TMT Ventures Limited is the technology, media and telecom investment arm of Hong Kong based Novel Group. Novel TMT, with approximately US$70 million under management, invests in both public and private TMT companies on a direct as well as indirect basis. Its investment strategy focuses on consumer technology companies and the video gaming sector. Investments are concentrated in the United States and China.

Management Team

Karl Mehta
Co-Founder & CEO

Karl Mehta brings over 16 years of experience to PlaySpan in founding and building high-tech businesses in the US and international markets. Prior to co-founding PlaySpan Inc., Karl was part of the founding team at MobileAria Inc. (acquired by Wireless Matrix) and co-founder/ CEO of OmniLabs Inc.. Prior to that, he held executive positions at Hughes leading new business and technology development. Karl is Charter member of TiE-Silicon Valley and board member of Ecosystem Ventures.

Kevin Higgins
President, Payment Business/ PayByCash®

Kevin Higgins brings over 20 years of years game industry experience to PlaySpan as President of the payment business unit, PayByCash, which he conceptualized and helped found in 1998. Kevin has been President and CEO of PayByCash since 2001. Prior to PayByCash, Kevin Higgins was Vice-President, Customer Support, for Kesmai Corporation in 1997 and served in that role until they were acquired by Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS). While with Electronic Arts (“EA”), Kevin served as Director, Customer Support Tools and Technologies to design and deploy EA’s integrated, cost-effective, game and community support platform for multiple online services, including the EA.com Web site, which was one of the most highly trafficked sites on the Web.

As President and CEO of Internet Payment Solutions, Inc. (“PayByCash®), the company sustained year-over-year growth averaging in excess of 100%. PayByCash’s 3-year growth at the end of 2006 was 351%, which placed PayByCash as the 49th fastest growing, privately held financial services company in the US by Inc Magazine. PayByCash’s 3-year growth at the end of 2007 was 527%, all under a “bootstrap” financial model.

Andrew Magruder
CTO, Payment Business/ PayByCash®

Andrew Magruder brings over 20 years of game industry experience to PlaySpan as CTO of the payment business unit, PayByCash. Andrew has served as CTO of PayByCash since  2004 with over 15 years of experience in games  and simulation with Electronic Arts, LucasArts, NASA and Kesmai Corp. He joined Kesmai Corporation in 1998. When Kesmai was acquired by EA (NASDAQ; ERTS), Andrew became Chief Architect of Electronic Arts’ online group, EA.com. He was responsible for the platform technologies for all online EA games. He led the technical development of and launched the EA.com game portal, a platform that incorporated the AOL Games Channel and provided over 80 games to 6 million users a month.  Andrew left EA to join LucasArts to work on an unannounced Star Wars game, and supported the development of Full Throttle and Star Wars: Galaxies.

He started his career with NASA working on flight software and transitioned into US Military information systems.  The combination of skills necessary to develop software on which human lives rely, under stringent security requirements, served him well as he helped the US Military transition from mainframes to Internet-based technologies throughout the European, African and Middle Eastern theaters.

Dan Kolkowitz
CTO & VP Operations

Dan Kolkowitz has been involved in technology development and distributed system development for more than 25 years. Dan co-founded and was VP of Engineering for Swan Labs Inc., a leading vendor in wan optimization which was sold to F5 in 2005. Prior to that, he co-founded MobileAria Inc., Securify Inc, and Compact Devices. Dan has been active in networking and security industry and standards organizations for the past 20 years. Dan has lectured in the CS Department at Stanford University where he completed his Masters in Computer Science.

Julie Whitehead
CFO, Payment Business/ PayByCash®
Finance Controller, PlaySpan Inc.

Julie Whitehead brings over 15 years of experience  to PlaySpan as Finance Controller and CFO of the payment business, PayByCash. Julie has served as CFO of PayByCash since 2006 and led all financial aspects of this fast growing company and is deeply involved in a number of key operational areas. Prior to PayByCash, Julie was the Corporate Controller at  Multi-Color Corporation (NASDAQ: LABL) for 6 years and helped the company grow from $50 million in sales to approx. $200 million in sales.  She was responsible for all internal and external (SEC) financial reporting.  She took the company through 7 acquisitions, from negotiating the deals through integration of the companies with Multi-Color. 

She spent 10 years with the international accounting firm, Grant Thornton.  With Grant Thornton, Julie focused on completing audits for mid-market manufacturing and other service orientated companies, with a concentration on public companies (completing SEC filings, IPO’s and secondary offerings).  In addition to audit work, Julie was involved with the firm’s internal quality review process of various Grant Thornton offices spread across the United States. Julie graduated from Xavier University with a BSBA in Accounting.

Tony Weber
Director of Marketplace Operations

Tony brings over 18 years of experience in online transactions and finance with well-known consumer internet companies - ebay, Verisign, AOL and Netscape. Prior to joining PlaySpan, Tony held management positions as Director of Business Operations at VeriSign, Finance and marketplace / top seller analysis at ebay and Director of Marketing at Netscape. Most recently he developed marketing analytics for the consumer internet/mobile industry. His background includes heavy transaction and billing operations experience, which ensures high volume microtransactions for PlaySpan publisher partners and end-users. Tony earned MBA with concentration in Finance from San Diego State University and BA in Economics from University of California, Davis.

Tony Colafrancesco
Director of Business Development & Game Integration

Tony Colafrancesco brings more than 14 years of experience in the video game industry with Electronic Arts, Wild Tangent and AOL Games. Prior to joining PlaySpan, Tony managed all gaming and entertainment related business for the AIM Network. His work in AIM integration has resulted in millions of new users to online gaming networks and MMO communities. Some of his more recent accomplishments with AIM integration included Turner Gametap, The Matrix Online, Open AIM, SCI's Playlinc, GGL, and community work with Blizzard. Tony has worked directly with many top titles including Ultima Online, The Sims, Triple Play 2001, Jane's USAF, Need for Speed: High Stakes and Nascar Revolution and as managed relationships with Blizzard, EA, Vivendi, Time Warner, Ubisoft, MTV, LiveNation, Sony, LucasArts, GGL, SCI, Tencent and Tocali Games.

In addition to holding executive and management positions at AOL, Electronic Arts, Wild Tangent and other companies, his previous experience as an engineer at Xerox, Eastman Kodak and SGI gives him a strong grasp of technology in addition to his business roles. Tony’s experience with games and integration of 3rd party software, ensures successful integration of PlaySpan technology with game publishers worldwide.

Alex Fries
VP Strategic Alliances

Alex Fries brings over 15 years of progressive experience in founding, funding, and managing global businesses and has successfully developed three start-up companies. Most recently, Alex co-founded and led the marketing, business development, and strategic partnerships teams for SVOX AG, a venture-backed company in Switzerland. In 2005, Alex acquired a Gaming Studio in Ireland, which he successfully sold to a local Investment firm and previously Alex worked as Executive Vice President of sales and marketing for Advance Visual Communications, a Boston-based venture-backed content company sold to US Web. In 2004, Alex founded Ecosystem Ventures to address investment and support in European technologies and pre-seed-stage companies. Alex is founder of the European-American Angels Club, a Silicon Valley-based organization that actively invests in European Start-ups. Alex received a BA in finance and an M.B.A. in telecommunications and international marketing from the University of San Francisco. He has lived in Hong-Kong, Switzerland, Chile, and the USA, and speaks fluent German, Spanish, French, and English.

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