Slashdot Mirror
12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company
Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."
The linkage in the article is incorrect. The linked article talks about a startup (Elementeo) founded by a 13 year old kid named Anshul Samar, and NOT about PlaySpan, supposedly founded by 12 year old named Arjun Mehta.
Sloppy.
Is it just me or the summary bears no relation to the article it links to. The article talks about this kid inventing a board game, not "a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items".
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Makes slightly more sense with the correct link..
http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/19/playspan-run-12-year-old-ceo-gets-65m-in-venture-capital/
Which is not to say that investing $6.5M in a company run by a 12yo makes much sense but stranger things have happened at sea.. or so they say.
A comment says The story about 12 year old co-founder is a big oversell...I know because I broke the story on funding two days ago. The CEO Karl Mehta and Arjun's dad is the real guy behind it...arjun just came up with part of the idea for it, and is not really involved with the business per se. Arjun's mention on the site is a gimmick which will be rectified soon...the release doesn't mention him and for good reason. Venture beat is investigating it, turns out the it is a hoax. Father using his son to make millions.
Should read: "12-year old takes credit for his father's entrepreneurship and garners headlines for his father's company, father rewards extra publicity with new ferrari which kid will subsequently wreck during driver's ed"
stuff |
I know his father Karl Mehta. He hails from Bombay/India and is a known 'hack' in Silicon Valley devising all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes with his VC brother Miten Mehta (go google). This appears to be one of his yet-another pipedreams. His previous idea was Tradeits.com (www.tradeits.com) which didnt reach anywhere. More here: http://center.spoke.com/info/p2iETB/KarlMehta
Please don't waste a min of your time on this crap. Arjun, his son, has no clue about what's going on - his father is using him for the dramatic effect.
You jest, but actually there is good reason to suspect kids in developing countries with no real techno-experience and no training provided will happily get to grips with computers. It's anecdotal I know, but it's a very interesting article, I'd recommend reading it.