Former head of Unibet Poker and Akamon CPO partner for B2B venture
Steve Cutler and Alex Cohen’s Kalamba Games studio to develop slots and casino content
Unibet’s former head of poker, Steve Cutler, and Akamon’s ex-product chief, Alex Cohen, have teamed up to co-found a new games supplier, EGR Intel has learned.
Kalamba Games, which officially launched last month in time for ICE, sees Cutler take up the role of chief executive officer, while Cohen has been appointed chief operating officer.
The new games studio will be based in Malta and Krakow, and will focus on developing HTML5 slots and casino content for both real-money and free-to-play social casino operators.
Speaking to EGR Intel, Cutler said he was confident the industry experience of the two co-founders would help Kalamba Games stand out in a fiercely competitive market.
“While we know that both the B2C and B2B gambling markets are highly competitive, we identified that the largest gaps still lie within the games on the B2B side,” he said.
“We are creative souls, we love games but are also highly pragmatic in our approach and know that, being self-funded, it is less risk to drive and create a successful B2B solution.”
The two co-founders have both worked in the gaming sector for a number of years, with Cutler working in senior roles within Kindred Group’s (formerly Unibet Group) poker team for more than six years.
He later joined social casino operator Ganymede where he held roles including chief strategy officer and chief operating officer.
Cutler’s Kalamba Games co-founder, Alex Cohen, has worked in games design within the egaming sector for more than 10 years, with roles at IGT and QuickSpin.
Cohen was chief product officer at Tangelo Games (formerly Imperus Technologies) which formed following the acquisitions of Diwip and Akamon Entertainment.
“Alex has many years of experience delivering high-quality, successful slots and with him driving the product, it makes logical sense to start there,” Cutler added.
“We have also identified other un-tapped game genres which could quickly become part of our pipeline but we don’t, at this critical stage, plan to dilute any of the product or company focus.”
According to Cutler, the firm is also in the process of working with a platform provider to develop a new remote gaming server.