Pikum’s Social Gambling Site Loses Its $6m In Chips, Closes
Pikum, an online social gambling startup which had £3.98 million ($5.92m) in investment from Virgin USA and First Round Capital has shuttered.
We’ve tried email and phone calls to get hold of the CEO and will update this post when we get official comment. However, the image on Pikum’s front page says it all:
Meanwhile, sources close to the company said "I think they ran out of money. As far as I know they spent a lot on getting the right gaming licences on Alderney and putting the infrastructure in place. Then they spent a lot on marketing."
Pikum’s users could choose to play for fun or money but the latter meant it had to be registered as a gambling entity in the off-sore juirisdiction of Alderney in Europe - generally an expensive enterprise - and was therefore based in London, while engineers resided in South Africa. Competitors were sites like Party Gaming, 888, Betfair and Tradesports, but Pikum reputedly failed to gain much traction with users despite hefty amounts spent on marketing.
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