Ouya seeks funding outside Kickstarter - report

Update: CEO of Ouya Julie Uhrman issued the following statement regarding this report:

"Let me be clear, OUYA is not seeking additional funding outside of Kickstarter. Our priority now is to continue to focus on building a great game console while engaging in our ongoing Kickstarter campaign."

"Our intent in going to Kickstarter was to raise money that would take us from functional prototype to product on the market."

"With respect to our funding, we have been candid in disclosing an early round raised through friends and family that included backing from investors like Digg founder Jay Adelson, Flixster founder Joe Greenstein, and Jawbone founder Hosain Rahman."

"We do not intend to engage in any conversations related to funding while we are on Kickstarter. And, it's not like we are going to start speed dialing VCs as soon as the Kickstarter campaign ends. Oncee our Kickstarter campaign closes funding our priority will be getting OUYA to market, and delivering the best game experience possible. Fundraising will not be top of the list."

"Unfortunately, I think this rumour sprung from a misunderstood answer during an interview and we are trying to contact the reporter to clarify."

Original story: Hackable Kickstarter-funded Android console Ouya is seeking extra capital beyond its crowdsourced roots.

Despite attaining over five times its Kickstarter goal of 950,000 with 23 days to go, this is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, $5 million may be a lot to us, but when competing against mega-corporations like Sony and Microsoft it's merely a drop in the bucket.

As such, Ouya is using Kickstarter more as a way to gauge interest and prove to other potential investors that this is something people want. In an interview with Develop, Ouya founder Julie Uhrman said, "We're looking for additional funds of money but more importantly we wanted to take it to Kickstarter regardless. Because Kickstarter will give us the support we need from the gamers and developers to get additional content on the devices and bring additional partners to us."

"It is unbelievable validation where gamers really demonstrate their enthusiasm with for what we're doing with dollars, and those numbers demonstrate that there is a market."

"This is a really big undertaking and it's going to be expensive."

Not everyone will see it in this light, as many have a problem with companies using Kickstarter when it already has funding elsewhere.

We've pressed Ouya for comment about this as well as various other concerns. We'll update as we hear back.