Two Brisbane-based QUT game developers have captured angel investors' funding to commercialise their start-up company's first product which is currently preventing spam and improving the security of thousands of websites.
In the process, they've hit upon a new simple advertising tool that is a marketer's dream - a new way to have consumers engage with their product and a potential godsend for non-profit organisations.
Already 17,000 websites have adopted FunCaptcha, the first product developed by QUT game development lecturer Matthew Ford and QUT Game and Interactive Entertainment grad Kevin Gosschalk's Brisbane-based, start-up, SwipeAds.
"FunCaptcha, is a colourful and engaging game we developed as an alternative to the boring monochrome "CAPTCHA" - the wavy words and letters you have to decipher to prove you are not spamming," Mr Ford said.
"We saw the frustration of users who'd spent time creating a username and password and filling in their sign-up details only to come to the final hurdle when one in four attempts of the 300 million CAPTCHAs used each day fails and the person moves on without completing the transaction.
"We realised organisations invest a lot of money to get people to their sites - they buy Google ads, run a Facebook page etc and then they lose them at the last moment.
"We saw the need for a better way and to add some fun to a necessary but boring process to protect against spamming."
They developed FunCaptcha, a colourful, non-intimidating 'game' which asks users to, say, correctly orient a colour photo or move an image into the centre in order to stump spamming computers and give flesh and blood users a happy experience.
The 13,000 sites around the world using FunCaptcha for free, include Care2.com, a 25 million-member online petitions site and Vogue Australia.
"We've used the angel investment to monetise FunCaptcha so that it can be like a billboard that advertisers can buy space on and run a game using their product image," Mr Ford said.
"This is a boon for sites like Care2.com because the advertiser who buys space on their FunCaptcha will pay us for each viewing and click-through, and we then share that revenue with Care2.
FunCaptcha is a major source of revenue for websites, including non-profit organisations, and a great opportunity for advertisers."
"Our tests show a 20.4 per cent rise in people completing the form—that's more people becoming members or supporters.
"People say it's fun and they don't feel as though they're failing a test."
Mr Ford said the funding from the angel investors would allow SwipeAds to pass through the critical 'valley of death' between product viability and sustainable revenue.
He said securing angel investment was a rare coup for an Australian start-up.
"Fewer than 50 deals like this are made each year. That's a poor showing despite a Price-Waterhouse Coopers report finding that new tech companies could create 540,000 Australian jobs and produce four per cent of GDP by 2033 if the start-up ecosystem improved," Mr Ford said.
"It's all the more remarkable that SwipeAds formed in Brisbane, a start-up hub one-sixth the size of Sydney, and half the size of Melbourne."
Media contact: Niki Widdowson, 07 3138 2999 or Rose Trapnell, QUT media team leader, 07 3138 2361 or 0407 585 901 rose.trapnell@qut.edu.au
