About Ignite

Ignite Game Technologies is a Silicon Valley-based online gaming company founded in 2008 by skill-quantification expert Jonathan Haswell to produce a new kind of racing game. The result, Simraceway, was launched in public beta in November 2011. The company counts four-time IndyCar Series winner Dario Franchitti and double Le Mans champion Allan McNish among its physics development team and benefited from the expertise of two-time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon before his death in 2011. It also has the distinction of being able to leverage a permanent real-world racing facility—the Sonoma Raceway-based Simraceway Performance Driving Center—for R&D.

Board of Directors




Drivers

Board of Directors

Jonathan Haswell
Founder & CEO

Jonathan Haswell is the founder and CEO of Ignite Game Technologies, creator of the online racing world Simraceway, and inventor of Skillquant, a highly-accurate player skill quantification and matching engine for video games.

Since founding Ignite in 2008, Jonathan has been responsible for driving the company's overall vision, successfully raising over $17.5m from investors and building a team of 40 industry experts as well as driving key product decisions and defining its marketing strategy.

Jonathan cut his entrepreneurial teeth by founding Votum, an innovative skill gaming company that helped clarify the legal fog between chance and skill gaming law and ultimately led to the creation of Ignite. Prior to this he was an analyst and venture manager at Greenchip Investments, an IT and Biotech investment company.

Originally from the UK, Jonathan was educated at Exeter University, where he received his Masters in Finance. He also holds postgraduate qualifications from the Securities Institute and the London School of Economics and has completed the Marathon Des Sables, a 150-mile "ultramarathon" across the Sahara Desert.

James Synge
Founder & CFO

James Synge is the co-founder and CFO of Ignite Game Technologies. As well as playing a crucial role in the company's creation, including the provision of significant funding through its formative period, he has been responsible for securing partnerships with key auto and race series brands featured in its online racing world, Simraceway.

During his 20 years of banking experience, James has held senior positions including Senior Vice President at Bankers Trust Australia, Managing Director of Deutsche Bank's Structured Product Group in Germany, and Joint Global Head of the Structured Finance Division of UBS in Switzerland, and has worked on a number of multi-billion dollar structured finance transactions for large multi-national companies around the world.

James has acted as an early-stage "angel investor" for a number of companies, including PepTcell and Life 360, and is actively involved in funding start-ups in his native Australia.

Originally from Sydney, James is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney and a Masters of Taxation from Sydney University. He is also deeply involved with Conservation Finance International, an entity that works with leading financial institutions to finance and manage profitable sustainable development projects.

Bill Budinger

Bill focuses on early stage technology companies and is currently an investor in Mota, Simraceway, GLO Science, Lifecrowd, Graph Effect and Hurel. Bill also served as a Director in RealD, which had a successful IPO in July 2010, CloudSync, which was sold to Good Technologies in 2009, Aspen Design Works and Rugged Land. Prior to this he was a participating shareholder in a family business started in 1968. Rodel was the worldwide leader in CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) technology and related intellectual property. Rodel was sold to Rohm and Haas over the period 1997 to 2002. It is now part of Dow Chemical. He graduated with honors with a BA in Psychology from Boston University.

Dave Marrs

Mr. Marrs is CFO of Geronimo Ventures, LLC ("Geronimo"). Geronimo provides financial and investment management services for a family and their affiliated entities. Geronimo is located near Aspen, Colorado. Mr. Marrs has over 16 years experience in Family Wealth Management, 2 years as Regional President of a Colorado Bank, 4 years in Real Estate Development/Finance and 3 years in Public Accounting.

A significant focus of Mr. Marrs and Geronimo is creating wealth for managed portfolios by investing in alternative assets with specific emphasis on investing in high quality early stage companies.

Kim Duncan

After graduating from Yale University, Kim began his career as a trader at Goldman Sachs in 1987. From there, he went on to Nomura, Credit Suisse and Mizuho leading teams conducting principal investment activities in which the firms' capital was invested directly for their own account. Major transactions include the acquisitions of Inntrepreneur Pub chain, Angel Trains, AT&T Capital, and Stenvalvet AB. Kim has extensive experience in structured finance, leveraged finance and credit derivatives trading. He sits on the boards of various early stage ventures including SEEK, Curemark LLP,Pharmajet Inc, Spatial View Inc, Flying Aces Limited, Ignite Game Technologies, Respicopea Holdings Limited.

Throughout his career, Kim has been involved in charitable endeavours such as the Big Brotherprogramme, educational funding providing scholarships for underprivileged teenagers, cancer research and environmental charities. Kim is a co-founder of the The Rush Foundation, which was registered in Switzerland in September 2010 to fund disruptive ideas in the fight against HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

Steve Bellotti

Steve has worked in leadership roles in markets for 23 years — across all asset classes — managing bonds, foreign exchange, rates, credit, equities, derivatives, sales and trading for Merrill Lynch in nine successive Managing Director positions over 13 years. He has built a number of large complex capital markets operations for global banks, including Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort in London, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Steve's most recent role is as Managing Director, Global Markets, ANZ Bank based in Sydney. He has global operational and strategic accountability for ANZ's Global Markets business, which delivers product solutions across foreign exchange, capital markets, interest rates, commodities and derivatives, credit and equity as well as specialist research and risk management expertise. His last role's prior to joining ANZ in March 2010 had been based in London, and included MD — Head of European Debt Trading and Sales, Derivatives, Debt Capital Markets and Structured Finance for Merrill Lynch and MD — Global Head of Capital Markets for Dresdner Kleinwort Group.

Drivers

Dario Franchitti

Four-time IZOD IndyCar Series Champion and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Dario Franchitti drives for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. He is one of only five drivers to win both the Indianapolis 500 and the series title in the same season on more than one occasion.

Following his fourth title victory in 2011, Franchitti became the third driver in IndyCar history to win three titles in a row and moved into a tie for second place on the all-time list for most IndyCar Championships.

The most successful British driver in US open-wheel history, Dario has started over 200 CART and IZOD IndyCar Series races during his career, taking the checkered flag over 30 times and completing more than 100 top-five finishes.

Over the course of his career, Franchitti has accumulated a wealth of experience and trophies, winning races on road courses, street courses, short ovals, and superspeedways. He is one of only 12 drivers to win a race in both the IndyCar Series and in CART.

Allan McNish

Double winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and three-time American Le Mans Series Champion, Allan McNish began his sports car racing career in 1996 with Porsche at a time when the marque's 911 GT1 was revolutionizing the sport. Racing for the factory team, he drove the car to victory in the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans.

McNish has since raced for both Toyota and Audi in the famous event, missing out on victory in the dying stages of the 2007 race, but returning a year later to secure his second title alongside Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello in an Audi R10.

On top of a spell with Toyota in Formula One, he has also raced with great success for Audi in the American Le Mans Series, winning the title in 2000, 2006, and 2007, while also taking four victories at the prestigious 12 Hours of Sebring—a feat that puts him third in the all-time list of the event's winners.