Dylan Collins (born 1980) is an Irish software company founder and technology investor. Collins was a co-founder in 2003 of the gaming software start-up Demonware, which was sold to

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

in 2007. In 2007, Collins went on to acquire

Jolt Online Gaming Jolt Online Gaming was an online gaming company hosted in Ireland. Its main site provided news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosted and published ...

which was sold to

GameStop GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer, headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). The brand is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operated 3,203 stor ...

in 2009. In 2013, Collins founded SuperAwesome, a company that builds infrastructure to enable safe engagement with young audiences on the internet, where he served as the CEO until 2023. The company raised a $7 million investment in June 2015 and in 2017 it was reported by

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...

that the company had raised an additional £20m. The company powers the parental consent requirement for many games oriented at kids such as

Pokémon Go ''Pokémon Go'' (stylized as ''Pokémon GO'') is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game originally developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices. It uses mobile devic ...

. Microsoft's investment arm M12 invested in the company in 2019 and it was acquired in 2020 by

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...

for just under $500 million. Collins is regularly quoted in the media around the application of

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is ...

(COPPA) to technology companies and the general concern of parental consent required for games and applications that target children. He has recommended media companies have a "Chief Children's Officer" to safeguard the privacy and concerns of children. Collins is a graduate of

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

, and he previously sat on the boards of Irish television animation studio

Brown Bag Films Brown Bag Films UC. (BBF) is an Irish television and computer-animation studio owned by Canadian production studio 9 Story Media Group and based in Dublin with 2D and 3D animation facilities in Bali, Los Angeles, Toronto and formerly Manches ...

and the UK agency Potato. He is also a Venture Partner in Hoxton Ventures.

References

Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Living people 21st-century Irish businesspeople 1980 births {{Ireland-business-bio-stub