Since opening its doors seven years ago, the Microsoft Innovation Centre has hosted and mentored over 160 start-ups. It is now enabling international start-ups to come and relocate to the island. One of these start-ups is Tomobox. David Sachs, its CEO, explains to The Sunday Times of Malta how the company, based in Tel Aviv, has been up and running for three years and supported by investors such as Nielsen Ventures.

Tell us a bit about Tomo-box, its founding, mission and specialisation.

My founder and I are passionate about communications between people. Language and human interaction are something that drives us. We are also very keen about artificial intelligence and its capabilities to understand language and human behaviour, so we use it to analyse huge amounts of player data, which include in-game interactions and many in-game numeric data points.

We’ve developed an AI-driven platform that alerts operators on player behaviour, such us intent of leaving the platform and identifying patterns of human beha­viour that are typical to compulsive players who might be prone to addiction issues.

What is your relationship with Microsoft in Malta?

We’ve been looking to partner with local Maltese powerhouses and it is evident that Microsoft Innovation Centre fits the bill. We’ve won the Sigma18 start-up pitch out of 200 candidate start-ups, and very proud of it. MIC has offered to us, as part of our winnings, a 12-month residence at the MIC as a springboard to attracting Malta-based gaming operators. We’re thrilled to have Micro­soft as one of the supporters of our upcoming seminar to educate operators about the potential that AI has in the gaming industry. 

You are currently based at the MIC. How was the experience so far and what are your targets for the coming months?

Our objective is to become part of the Malta gaming community by providing leading edge solutions that help gaming operators keeping players happy and safe, thus generating more revenue. MIC provides immediate access through its vast network of connections and is supporting our first initiative to promote the first hands on AI-related gaming seminar. In the short time we’ve been working together I’ve noticed a huge potential, where both our countries and markets can benefit.

We are aware of an agreement for Nouv to become your resellers in Malta. What value will this bring to Nouv and its clients?

Nouv is a distinguished consultant to many gaming operators. As such, Nouv is pioneering gaming compliance implementation and processes. We’ve found out that there is a tremendous gap bet­ween the know-how that consultants have and the tools they might use through their audits or thereafter. Recently regulators have slapped gaming operators with huge fines for failing to comply with safe betting regulations.

We love the diversity of the people [in Malta] and obviously the drive to become a leader in gaming, blockchain and AI

It turns out that AI can complement the auditor’s process by providing real-time alerts to incidents that fall within compliance re­quire­ments, being it anti-money laundering or responsible betting. Nouv clients will be able, with a modest investment, to connect to our AI-driven engine and auto­mati­cally alert and document com­pliance violations. That is a meaningful advance over manual tools and documenting that can’t keep up with vast amounts of player data that are being generated every second.

What can you say about the start-up environment in Israel, and how does it compare to Malta?

They call Israel the Start-up Nation because of the origins on how Israel was built with an entrepreneurial spirit. Many in­novations were spawn in the mili­tary and made their way to commercial uses. That attracted multi­nationals such as Intel, Microsoft and Google, all of which have R&D centres in Israel.

Young people discharged from the army all have their own start-up dreams. Israel’s investment community boasts a food chain that is second only to Silicon Valley. Malta is still very embryonic, but the talent is there and so is the start-up spirit. We see ourselves as a bridge between Israel and Malta, which have a very similar go-get-it culture.

What are you seeing by opera­ting from here? What strikes you most about Malta?

We love the diversity of the people and obviously the drive to be­come a leader in gaming, block­chain and AI. We can also feel and see the government’s support of making Malta an innovation hub.

What about your product SafeTrac? How does this fit in the current gaming sector in Malta?

We all look for gaming to be­come safe and fun to play. Re­cently regulators are stepping up efforts to make sure gaming opera­tors comply and become responsible for players who might go astray.

SafeTrac is an innovative software product driven by AI that helps compliance officers in gaming. It flags, in real-time, any player with compulsiveness or addiction to the game. By red flagging these players we can make sure everyone is playing safely without jeopardising their lives or their future.