EXOGROUP acquires social gaming platform Playfulbet

Barcelona 6 August 2018 – EXOGROUP, the digital technology enterprise business group, today announced it has acquired social gaming platform Playfulbet.

Playfulbet is a free to play social gaming sports platform with 8 million users. Founded by former professional poker player Pol Ruiz in 2012, players are given free virtual coins to use to bet on the outcome of a range of sports match verticals: football, basketball, tennis, e-sports, baseball and rugby. Players receive coins each time they win a bet, when players have accumulated a sufficient number of coins, these can be cashed out for prizes. Prizes include a range of electronic devices including gaming consoles, smartTVs, smartphones, video games, etc. Playfulbet is available to play on desktop, mobile web at https://playfulbet.com and via iOS and Android apps, the Playfulbet apps have 2 million installs.

The social element to Playfulbet allows registered players to create their own profiles, follow and make friends with other players on the platform as well as seeing rankings of the biggest betters for matches, collecting badges, etc. Players can also join together in what are called ‘pools’ where players can bet on the outcomes of sports matches as a group.

Playfulbet is aimed at males aged 18-35 years old and Spain is its largest market with 4 million users followed by 3.2 million across Latam countries with the remainder spread across Europe/rest of the World.

Playfulbet generates income from a range of advertising revenue streams:

• Online advertising with banner display and native advertising (CPM): advertisers include online gambling websites, video games, electronic devices and user retargeted advertising sources such as Amazon
• Affiliate for sports betting platforms and video game App installations (CPI), players can win extra virtual coins for joining sports betting platforms, installing apps, completing surveys, watching promoted videos, etc

Benjamin Fonzé, CEO and founder of EXOGROUP commented, “We welcome Playfulbet to our group of companies to join ExoClick, EXADS, AdSecure and MobileCashout. I was very impressed with Playfulbet’s great product offering, market positioning and talented team. The company is a great fit for us as a group because Playfulbet generates its income from online advertising, which is a business we know inside and out.”

“EXADS and ExoClick have the technology and publishing/advertising sales experience to help Playfulbet really ramp up its traffic in existing and new GEOs, boost its ad inventory value and help it reach a global network of advertisers. MobileCashout provides a range of sports related entertainment content for mobile that can be integrated into Playfulbet’s revenue model. AdSecure will monitor all the advertising displayed on the Playfulbet platform to ensure advertising compliance. Through our intercompany synergies we can ensure Playfulbet grows into a highly profitable global sports betting platform. The founder continues in the company and Christian Khoury has been named as the new CEO.”

Playfulbet’s newly appointed CEO Christian Khoury commented, “I have known Benjamin Fonzé for more than 15 years, in fact I was ExoClick’s very first publishing client when Benjamin started the ad network back in 2006. I have a deep respect for him because he understands all of the different phases necessary to create, launch, adapt and successfully grow companies in the online business space.”

Khoury continued, “Currently Playfulbet has 8 employees. EXOGROUP bought out the previous investors, for an undisclosed sum. Benjamin sees huge potential in Playfulbet and EXOGROUP will inject at least 1 million euros into the product over the next 18 months. The high-level strategy is to heavily invest in the team (based in Barcelona), develop the platform’s technology for both desktop and new versions of the iOS and Android apps. From a marketing perspective we will increase our market share in existing markets and enter into new markets and drive user acquisition through media campaigns. We have set a goal to grow the amount of registered users globally over the next 24 months to 100M and 200M by the end of 2021.”

Founder and Marketing Director Pol Ruiz added, “EXOGROUP and its companies have a deep understanding of traffic acquisition, monetization, business intelligence, all backed up with its own technology. With additional sales, marketing, human resources and financial support we can now really scale up our business globally.”

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About EXOGROUP

EXOGROUP builds and invests in innovative tech projects, maximizing the synergies between each business enterprise. Currently, there are five companies inside EXOGROUP monetising the digital media space:

• ExoClick (launched 2006) is the innovative ad company, a programmatic ad exchange and the world’s 4th largest ad network which serves +6 billion daily ad impressions globally.
• EXADS (launched 2013) is a licensed SaaS solution which powers large ad networks, affiliate programs and high traffic websites. EXADS provides the technology for ExoClick’s leading ad network platform.
• AdSecure (launched 2017) is an ad verification technology used by ad networks, ad operations teams and publishers to ensure safe, compliant and malware-free ad delivery.
• MobileCashout (launched 2012) monetises mobile content to consumers by developing in-house engineered mobile sites and licensed apps with integrated localized carrier billing. MobileCashout acquired Spanish mobile tech company Espabit in 2014.
• Playfulbet (launched 2012, acquired by EXOGROUP 2018) is a free to play social gaming sports platform aimed at consumers aged 18-35 years old.