Shail Mehta is, and has always been, a board game fanatic.
When Mehta moved from India to the U.S. when she was six, games provided an easy way to fit in. One of her most powerful childhood memories involves her connecting with her neighbors over a game of Chutes and Ladders.
Years later, her passion is still as strong as ever. She has a wall in her house stacked to the brim with her favorite games, something the board game community calls a "shelfie."
After previous work experience in financial consulting, Mehta decided to chase her dream last year and launched The Last Gameboard.
Following a meeting where she pitched her vision for a digital game board, hardware guru and former Xbox architect Rob Wyatt joined Mehta on the founding team.
The company has developed a device that combines traditional board games with an interactive touchscreen board. The 16 by 16-inch Gameboard-1 combines internal antennas and radio identification technology to bring your favorite board games to life.
Anything from a chess set to traditional board game pieces can be equipped with the company’s tags, allowing it to be used with the board.
Mehta said rather than becoming a game developer, the company is going the platform route, partnering with the world’s major game creators. Think of it as the Kindle for hobby gaming, she said, along with a subscription model.
“Not only was it important to figure out the technology and how the board worked, we figured out that we didn’t want to be a game development studio, we wanted to be a platform.” Mehta said.
The company has over 100 games already committed to the platform, including Dungeons and Dragons, Starfinder and much more.
“Users can touch and play any game they want,” she said. “We’re really bringing the ease of tech to this analog industry.”
The Gameboard-1 is set to debut on Kickstarter on Oct. 10 with a retail price of $350 and the company is only selling 1,000 boards.
Mehta said the company is breaking even with the hardware, hoping to make its money on the subscription model that comes with each device. Her goal is to ship the first game boards out to customers in fall 2020.
The company raised an undisclosed pre-seed round earlier this year and has grown its staff to six ahead of the Kickstarter launch. Mehta said the company will raise a seed round after the Kickstarter is completed.
