Ukrainian startup Mobalytics raised $ 11.25 million: transaction details
Ukrainian startup Mobalytics won the legendary battle of startups at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2016. Since then, there has been little news from the company, but the project has evolved. And now he announced an investment of $ 11.25 million. The editor of AIN.UA tells the details of the deal.
What Mobalytics Does
The startup Mobalytics was founded by Ukrainians Bohdan Suchik and Mykola Lobanov. Suchik had already launched Motify.me – a motivational service for creating wish boards (but the project was closed in 2013), myTips – an online constructor of step-by-step tips for complex interfaces.
The Mobalytics project was conceived as an online simulator for gamers with which they can find their weak points and improve their skills (its name consists of references to the game genre MOBA and analytics).
The service assesses the skills of a gamer and reflects them in visualizations: there are estimates of skills, passability of maps, data on rivals, etc.
The first game discipline with which the service worked — League of Legends.
In September 2016, the startup won the TechCrunch Disrupt and received $ 50,000.
In November of the same year, the company attracted $ 2.6 million in investments from Almaz Capital, Founders Fund, General Catalyst and GGV Capital funds. In August 2017, the company launched a public beta of its “trainer for gamers”.
As Bogdan Suchik told AIN.UA, during the victory at Disrupt, the product was in closed alpha. At that time, the service had 100 active users and another 17,000 people on the waiting list.
“We spent most of 2017 improving and optimizing the GPI (Gamer Performance Index), which is the backbone of our analytics platform and the future standard for assessing player skills across the industry. In August 2017, we went into open beta and in the first three months passed the mark of 500,000 users”, – said the co-founder of the project.
Throughout 2018, the team was working on finalizing the product, improving the GPI, and also launched the first experiments with monetization. In 2019 Mobalytics started working on a service for other games.
Mobalytics Deal Details
As the company told AIN.UA, in the current round A, the company raised about $ 11.25 million from the same investors as in 2016.
“We are not fans of fundraising and have always tried to stay away from it. But it turns out that when the product grows, the fundraising goes smoothly and with almost no headaches. Our current round was led by an existing investor, most of the existing investors and several new ones took part in the round”, – in the company said..
Among the new investors in the project are specialized ones, for example, the South Korean esports company T1. Shares and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The team is going to spend the attracted investments on the growth of the product and technical team, as well as on further work on the service.
Company indicators
Now the company employs 36 people from all over the world (Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, Germany, Great Britain, Turkey, Israel, Australia). The main office of Mobalytics is located in Los Angeles, 11 people work here.
It is interesting that from the first days the company was created on the principles of remote work: most of the employees work from home. Given that the company operates in the gaming industry, new employees are given a $ 2,000 bonus to equip the workplace (for example, to upgrade or buy gaming accessories).
The project began in 2020 with 1.6 million active users per month, and in May, at the height of the quarantine, the project’s MAU was already 7 million. Now an online trainer works for League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra and Valorant.
In the near future, the team plans to expand premium features for existing games and add simulators for new game disciplines.
Source: ain.ua
