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Eneba raises $8M from InReach, Practica and VInted’s Mikuckas to grow gaming marketplace
Slick localized buying experience, innovative approach to fraud and automated local gaming trend detection contribute to Eneba’s status as a preferred marketplace for gaming community with stratospheric growth to 26M users
Eneba (www.eneba.com), the world’s fastest growing marketplace for gamers, has today announced that it has raised a total of $8M led by Practica Capital and InReach Ventures, the AI-powered venture capital firm, with contribution from FJ Labs and a group of established Angel investors including Mantas Mikuckas, COO of Vinted.
Launched in 2018 by two Lithuanian school friends, Vytis Uogintas and Žygimantas Mikšta, Eneba provides a marketplace for gamers to safely purchase everything they need for the world’s most popular games. Combining an unrivalled buying experience with superior proprietary security features, Eneba has already attracted a community of 26 million unique users.
Operating under the radar until now, Eneba has quickly made an impact in the gaming sector thanks to its new approach, where previously others have not innovated. Eneba presented the market with a superior ‘one-click buy’ gamer experience and a faster, more secure service by using proprietary machine learning and fingerprinting technology.
The team also created localised gaming experiences that proved an immediate hit with gamers by using automatic optimising discovery tools for locally trending gaming products.
As COVID-19 struck Eneba was already growing fast, but, with an increased shift to digital entertainment, the startup experienced exponential growth and an increased interest from US gamers; now the company’s fastest growing geography.
“We had a lot of new users coming to Eneba during these uncertain times. While it was extremely satisfying to see our numbers increasing tenfold, there was a challenge to meet the demand. To better reflect our user numbers, we had to quickly expand our team,” said Co Founder and CMO, Žygimantas Mikšta. “We now have a 130-strong team of brilliant software developers, risk analysts and marketing experts that have built a delightful experience for 26 million consumers across multiple geographies such as the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, France, Poland, and other European countries.”
As the startup grew, there were many challenges for the company in order to maintain its new found momentum. Vytis Uogintas, CO Founder and CEO said that rapid organization growth has been one of the biggest to date. However, he also emphasizes that Eneba’s breakthrough has been determined by the team.
“Finding people you can trust and who share your vision is not easy. However, we had plenty of contacts from our previous ventures that kickstarted the whole process. Right from the get-go, we were emphasizing our company culture as our top priority. For me, it’s much more enjoyable to see happy colleagues and when they’re happy, it’s easier to communicate with them and reach desired goals.”
Eneba will use its funding to accelerate investments in product development making the platform faster, safer and easier to use, and to expand further in the US and across other key global markets. To prepare for this roll-out, Eneba has developed its own risk management system. The new system was developed in-house to better fit the company’s goals. It eliminates many risky transactions, simplifies the refunding process, and blocks majority fraud threats, thus making Eneba stand as one of the safest marketplaces on the internet.
“We are thrilled to be backing Vytis and Žygimantas. We’ve been impressed by their ability to execute at such speed as their company quickly scales, and to drive an incredible product with a unique value proposition for gamers. It also could not have come at a better time. We are excited to support one more team from the Baltics that has a clear ambition to lead their sector globally,” said Donatas Keras, partner at Practica Capital.
Co-founder of InReach Ventures, Roberto Bonanzinga, said “In Europe we have a tradition of building successful companies in the gaming space. We are very excited to have discovered Eneba thanks to our AI platform when the company was unknown and under the radar. We have been extremely impressed by what the founders have been able to build in such a short amount of time.”
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Global Dollar Network Launches USDG Stablecoin Which Could Revolutionise iGaming Transactions
In a significant advancement for the iGaming industry, the recent launch of the Global Dollar Network introduces USDG (Global Dollar), a stablecoin set to transform online gaming transactions. Already fronted by bigshot financial technology and cryptocurrency firms—including Robinhood, Kraken, and Galaxy Digital—this new option will provide a stable digital asset backed by traditional currencies.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that have been designed to maintain a fixed value by pegging them to more conventional currencies, such as the US dollar. In that respect, they respond better to issues of high volatility usually associated with cryptocurrencies—appealing to those industries requiring consistency of transaction value, an attribute that is invaluable in iGaming for online crypto casino platforms.
These casinos have become some of the most widely used platforms now where cryptocurrencies are accepted as a payment method. They offer great perks like generous bonuses, faster withdrawals, and a more private and seamless experience for players. However, crypto volatility can make it tricky as winnings can soar or drop based on how a particular crypto token is performing. Stablecoins make a great alternative to mitigate this issue.
The Global Dollar Network’s USDG has been issued from Singapore by the crypto platform Paxos, aligning with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s regulatory framework. The governance of USDG will be handled by a board that includes representatives from its network partners, such as Anchorage. USDG will face the uphill challenge of seeking entry into a market dominated by Tether and other prominent stablecoins, which hold nearly 90% combined of the total market capitalization, according to a CoinGecko report.
With USDG integrated into an iGaming platform, several tangible benefits are predicted to arise. First of all, it improves a lot in terms of transaction speed and efficiency. Traditional methods of banking delay the depositing and withdrawing of money, thus frustrating players who wish to participate in gaming activities. Stablecoins provide virtually instant transactions, allowing players to deposit their money and begin playing instead of waiting around for hours.
Furthermore, your winnings won’t fluctuate as much since they are relatively stable thanks to the coin being tied to the US dollar. Stablecoin transactions typically cut out most of the middlemen, hence reducing fees on deposits and withdrawals, making it cost-effective both for players and operators. This will enable players to have more funds for gaming while operators will be offering better services without necessarily affecting profitability.
However, acceptance of this class of cryptocurrency may vary among gaming platforms; whereas some online gaming platforms might fully accept them as a mode of payment, others might merely be considering it or be partially done with the integration process. Gamers wishing to try stablecoin should validate the different accepted payment means on their preferred platform.
Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla asserted that they are willing to offer incentives to ensure a speedy adoption of the new stablecoin across all industries. Per Reuters, he iterated that The Global Dollar Network is committed to redistributing nearly all rewards to its participants. Its purpose is to encourage the widespread use of global stablecoins and to speed up the adoption of the technology behind it.
The involvement of reputable financial institutions further solidifies the credibility of USDG. For the purpose of the project, DBS Bank has been chosen as the main banking partner, taking care of cash management and custody services for the reserves behind USDG. The partnership with a major South East Asia bank ensures that the stablecoin will be backed by secure and reliable financial assets, further building trust among its users and stakeholders.
Paxos co-founded USDG’s governing body with some of the biggest crypto giants: Anchorage Digital, Bullish, and Nuvei. As such, the new stablecoin has quite a big advantage over many competitors regarding regulatory compliance.
As such, the integration of stablecoins like USDG into the continuously developing iGaming industry is one of the main avenues through which payment systems are getting modernized and user experiences improved.
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SUPERSCALE RAISES $1.2 MILLION FOR GAME BUSINESS ANALYTICS ‘SUPERPLATFORM’
SuperScale, the game business analytics company, announces it has secured an investment round of $1.2 million to support the launch and rapid expansion of SuperPlatform, the ultimate game business analytics platform.
SuperPlatform solves a critical industry challenge: aligning changes in game business strategy from top to bottom with consistent and trustable data that is always up-to-date. The platform provides executives with a single source of reliable, standardized business insights from across the organization in order to execute data-backed strategies with coherence and confidence. After a soft launch in August 2024, 60 studios are already using SuperPlatform to understand their entire business in one integrated platform.
The fresh funding round was led by existing investors including Across Private Investments, LevelUp Ventures, Zero One Hundred, and Venture to Future Fund, along with new investor Strecko Investments. Following the successful soft launch and strong market adoption of SuperPlatform, SuperScale has already become cashflow positive and is extending the current funding round by a further $2.15 million by the end of 2024, positioning the company for sustained success.
The no-SDK SuperPlatform integration ensures consistency of business data from over 40 sources across marketing, product, and finance, providing an all-in-one, AI-powered view of games business performance. It brings games studios and publishers all the flexibility and data ownership of an internal solution at a fraction of the cost of today’s fragmented tools. SuperPlatform includes advanced features such as predictive modeling, automated data health monitoring, and hundreds of standardized use cases—all tailored to the unique needs of individual decision makers inside game organizations of all sizes.
A standout feature of SuperPlatform is its ‘Command Center’ which enables gaming executives and investors to model shifts in strategy, and execute them across their organizations. Whether a CEO of an indie studio focused on maximizing short-term cash flow or a Portfolio GM aiming to boost first-year profits in a larger gaming organization, SuperPlatform provides decision-makers with the accurate success criteria needed to align their teams with the organization’s goals.
Ivan Trančík, Founder and CEO of SuperScale, commented:
“Apple’s privacy changes and the post-pandemic slump rocked the games industry. CEOs, CFOs and investors have been kept up at night, scrambling to implement radically different business strategies across their organizations. By consolidating essential tools and analytics into one platform, we give studios of all sizes the peace of mind to trust their business data again, while reducing the need for multiple platform tools or costly internal solutions.”
He added:
“SuperPlatform is our flagship SaaS offering and is the culmination of eight years of internal development, encompassing all the tools and models developed by SuperScale. It has already delivered record profits to our partners as part of our existing complementary solutions and, by offering it as a unified platform, we can empower a much broader range of studios to achieve unprecedented results.”
Michal Csonga, partner at Zero One Hundred, said:
“SuperScale has executed a stellar corporate and product transformation during the most turbulent period in the history of the gaming industry. They have consolidated years of expertise into one software platform. SuperPlatform saves game studios and developers significant time and costs and increases profits drastically. We are thrilled to support this success story that is reshaping this global industry.”
Founded in 2015, SuperScale has long been known for offering a suite of solutions to game developers and publishers, powered by the proprietary analytics technology that now underpins SuperPlatform. By making it available to all on a subscription basis, SuperScale completes its transition from a service-based to a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model. To find out how SuperPlatform can unlock your game’s true potential, simply copy the link of your game in the Google Play or App Store into the platform’s Revenue Uplift calculator.
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