Elementeo's 13-yr-old CEO Seeks $100K Venture Funding at TiECON 2007 Conference

[mandy]

TiECON 2007, the big technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., kicked off yesterday.

The buzz on the expo floor was about Silicon Valley gaming startup Elementeo and its precocious 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar. “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game which he believes will change the way kids learn chemistry...

Like all good Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Samar was taking orders at the show even though he won’t start shipping product until he either receives his first 2,500 orders, or he closes a decent round of funding, whichever comes first. As of Saturday, he had already booked 450 pre-orders...

Now Samar says that if he can get $100,000 in funding, it will help him achieve his goal of $1 million in first year revenues by the time he graduates eighth grade in June 2008...

full article: http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/19/elemen...more-12504

[mandy]

The 13 year old has company.  A 12 year old just received $6.5 million in VC funding:

PlaySpan's plan is to sell virtual goods from within virtual worlds, and while not yet launched, has received $6.5 million in its first round of funding between Easton Capital, Menlo Ventures, STIC and Novel TMT Ventures. According to the website they've signed up seven MMOG publishers, and will attempt to be the only "official" commerce providers for them...

full article: http://metaversed.com/19-sep-2007/playsp...ce-network

from the company's website:

PlaySpan is founded by Arjun Mehta, a 5th grader, passionate about gaming and software programming that can make game playing experience exciting and more importantly rewarding!

PlaySpan started in Arjun’s garage in Silicon Valley in 2006 and was incorporated with Arjun’s earnings from selling online game items won from quests he fought while attending 5th grade at Challenger School in San Jose.

http://www.playspan.com/company.html