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Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, today welcomed the announcement that that Enterprise Ireland has invested €50,000 in game development company 9^th Impact.

The Galway-based company develops games for mobile phones and is best known as creators of the official Biker Mice from Mars games.  Biker Mice from Mars was a popular TV series in the ‘90s and 9^th Impact won the licencing rights to make the official game following an international competitive process. 

This investment is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland.

Enterprise Ireland invested in the company as part of their Competitive Start Fund, another competitive process, which invests for equity in high potential, export oriented, start-ups.

Speaking about the announcement Minister Mitchell O’Connor said: ”9^th Impact were an ideal fit for the fund. Over 95% of their sales are already exports to people playing their games all over the world.  With support from Enterprise Ireland they can continue to grow exports and most importantly, create more high skilled jobs in Galway.”

“I visited the studio in Galway recently and saw the blend of creativity and technical skills that game development involves,” said Minister Mitchell O’Connor.  “Ireland has a depth of talent in both areas and companies like 9^th Impact are harnessing these to tackle what is a $82bn global market for video games.”

The investment will be used to expand employment at the company, according to Head of Development, Finn Krewer. “We currently have a team of eight designers, artists and programmers and will expand to ten this year.”

“We’ve five new games in development currently and are in negotiations with TV studios and publishers about other projects, so it’s going to be a busy end to the year,” said Krewer.