Paris startup Kontest has raised a seed round of €600,000 from 3T Capital and Priceminister Co-founder Olivier Mathiot, the startup announced this week. Founded in 2010 by former Deezer employee Jacinthe Busson and former Googler Sylvain Weber, I had the pleasure of sharing an office with them in their very early days, and have watched them grow with the rising trend of online competitions.
In France, as with elsewhere in the world, online contests are regulated by gaming authorities, and dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s can be quite a pain (and quite expensive), if we’re not familiar with the process. Even platforms like Facebook, where Kontest’s first contests saw the light of day, have strict rules about what information can be requested, how winner’s must be chosen, and what information (rules, terms, etc.), and avoiding these rules can result in penalties (like losing your Facebook page, for example).
Kontest has branched out beyond Facebook, and now offers multi-platform, multi-device contests, so that contest organizers can reach their audience no matter which device or social network they use. They have a large catalogue of various games & contests (quizzes, puzzles, etc.) that contest organizers (usually brands & companies) can choose from, and they promise quite a large engagement & retention rate from contest participants.
I’m curious to see where Kontest goes in the coming months – they’ve so far stayed tightly focused, borderline ‘niche’ for me, but I think the founders have the capability to take Kontest to the next level, and look forward to seeing what their long-term execution looks like.