Ukrainian startup DMarket raised $ 6.5 million. Founder of Electronic Arts joins board of directors
The Ukrainian startup DMarket, which is working on the monetization of items in games, attracted a round of $ 6.5 million. Among investors are Almaz Capital and Xsolla. Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins joins the board of directors.
AIN.UA editor talks about the details of the deal.
What does DMarket do?
The company was launched in 2017 by the founder of the virtual items trading platform skins.cash, Volodymir Panchenko, Tamara Slanova, and co-founder of the Natus Vincere esports club Olexandr Kokhanovsky (now the project is an advisor). DMarket’s idea was to launch a platform for selling in-game items (for example, weapon skins).
In December 2017, the company held the largest Ukrainian ICO at that time, during which it raised the amount in cryptocurrency in the equivalent of $ 25 million. In 2018, due to instability in the cryptocurrency market, the project had to cut a quarter of its staff.
In 2019, according to management, market fluctuations did not affect DMarket, the year was successful. In August 2019, the company restarted its platform: from the marketplace model it switched to the exchange.
Deal details
In this round, the project raised $ 6.5 million in fiat. The company is now looking for up to $ 2 million investment. Among its investors is the Russian Almaz Capital fund. Data on the share sold to investors and on the valuation during the round are not disclosed.
Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, one of the world’s most famous gamedev companies, joins DMarket’s board of directors.
“I love the fact that DMarket is at the crossroads of five growing trends in the gaming industry: advanced social games, virtual asset trading, fashion, e-sports and blockchain”, – said a new member of the DMarket board of directors.
He is confident that the market for in-game items should shoot in the next 10 years.
What is the company doing now and what will it spend investments on
In 2020, according to Panchenko, the game industry in the coronacrisis has grown, unlike other industries. Growth was both in sales and in the number of users.
“If at the end of 2019, according to Newzoo, the number of players in the world amounted to 2.5 billion people, now it is 2.7 billion. Our indicators have also jumped – in some markets the number of users has increased by 60% compared to the crisis period,” – noted the co-founder of the company.
Now, according to the founders, every day at DMarket, they sell goods worth about $ 100,000. At the end of last year, the company signed an agreement with Darewise on the sale of game items from the game Life Beyond, a new payment system Paysafe was added. Now they are negotiating with other game developers.
According to AIN.UA, DMarket now has about 1 million users, and revenue in the first months of 2020 amounted to $ 450,000.
According to Panchenko, the money raised will be spent on the further development of DMarket Technology: this is a solution that allows game developers, players, influencers and brands to create content for video games and generate profit in games.
This includes financial and trading services, high-speed trading of items, work services for opinion leaders directly in games, etc. In the future, the company plans to bring the same technology to other markets in the entertainment industry: music, fashion, and cinema. According to Panchenko, if DMarket Technology is the main product, then the DMarket platform is its actual implementation, something like a case study.
The company also plans to bring people to the development team in the coming months, in particular, to the position of top managers. Basically, they will look for developers in Ukraine.
Source: ain.ua
