49. PlayMob

Founder: Jude Ower
Founded: 2011 (Launched October 2012)
Website: www.playmob.com

Games industry veteran Jude Ower got the idea for Playmob after seeing the runaway success of popular Facebook game Farmville’s campaign for victims of the Haiti earthquake, which saw creators Zynga raise $1.5m for the cause in just five days. Speaking to developers about why this did not happen more, it became apparent that the time, resource management and legal issues were just too great for studios to easily introduce a charity element into their games; and so Ower created a unified platform that would deal with these issues, allowing developers to integrate a campaign into their games within as little as 20 minutes. From the player’s point of view, Ower realised that one thing that gamers crave is a tangible sense of achievement for their efforts and so the Playmob platform also feeds back to the player so they can see exactly what they have done and where. Less than a year after launch, Playmob’s formula is already making a significant impact; with arguably the largest publisher in the business EA Games signed up as a partner, Playmob’s in-game microtransactions have raised more than £41,000 for good causes so far. The business has ambitious plans to raise $1bn for global causes in three years and expansion into the USA is planned soon.