Bears & Guts seeks to raise $1 million to launch a video game

The educational technology company (edtech) Bears & Guts is in the process of raising a $1 million pre-seed round. A part of this investment ($250,000) will be used to launch your minimum viable product (MVP) WOMGa video game whose objective is for children and adolescents to learn the basic concepts of programming.

The rest of the resources from the round will be used to maintain the company’s operations for the next two years, which also includes the maintenance of a new online education platform. Xihuein which he will offer a diploma in video games development.

Although based in San Francisco, California, United States, the company has a base in the Mexico City and staff working remotely Chihuahua y Aguascalientes. It is currently in the prototype phase and expects to launch the game in 2023 at a price of $5 per month in a one-time purchase model or $35 in an annual subscription.

The goal is for them to learn the logic of programming and learn computational thinking, which is learning to detect patterns and learning to break down problems,” said Manuel Meza Cuervo, founding partner of Bears & Guts, in an interview.

The videogameaccording to the entrepreneur who runs the Mexican office of the startup, it is an adventure video game in which the tests to be overcome are related to programming concepts. A student between 10 and 15 years old ─the video game’s target audience─ can learn a concept such as the loop, that is, the automatic repetition of an instruction, while at the same time passing a level of the virtual game.

The company’s other project, the virtual education platform Xihueis also linked to the world of video gamesince it is a one-year course whose objective is for students to learn to develop a video game in the engine Unity.

According to Meza Cuervo, the competitive advantage of the diploma course he plans to offer Bears & Guts lies in the fact that not only the technical issues of the development of video game but it will seek to detail the process of opening an independent video game studio, which goes from the approach of the history of videogame upon its release to the market.

The company plans its strategy according to the expectation of developer demand that currently exists and will be in the near future at a global level, as developed countries, such as the United States, increasingly turn to countries such as Mexico with the aim of seeking specialized programming workers.

rodrigo.riquelme@eleconomista.mx

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