EGR Intel: EveryMatrix on the B2B pivot

Ebbe Groes of EveryMatrix outlines the firm’s shifting focus in 2020

EveryMatrix CEO Ebbe Groes talks to EGR Intel about moving away from a white-label business and its acquisition of Spearhead Studios.

EGR Intel (EGR): What are the reasons for shifting to a B2B focus?

Ebbe Groes (EG): The key thing for us is to move away from the white-label business and to function purely as a software provider, meaning we’ll no longer have any B2C brands of our own and no longer want to provide gaming licences as a service for clients.

The white-label business is one where you target small- to medium-sized operators that get all of their services from your company. And of course, it’s nice that you have clients that buy everything from you. But since the type of clients we have now don’t require our licence, this means they are free to pick and choose from us the solutions which fit their needs the best.

This goes hand-in-hand with the software development we’ve been doing over the last couple of years, which was aimed at allowing greater modularity of software. Now when you look at our offering, there are two things that stand out. The first thing is that we are, to a far larger extent, signing clients that only pick one of our products. They are then free to match it together with whatever else they already have themselves. This is the first important change for us, and it’s quite a dramatic change given that just a couple of years ago a lot of our signings and the vast majority of our revenues came from turnkey solutions. The second important development for us is that once you release yourself from packaging everything together, you can take your best products and target tier-one clients.

The white-label model fits a certain segment of clients, but you cannot use it for targeting the tier one’s in the industry and it likely will not be a viable proposition to get them to move to your platform lock, stock and barrel.

While we are very happy when we sell our products to small clients on a standalone basis, a move away from the turnkey solutions towards selling our products in isolation has enabled us to sign some very large clients in the last couple of years. The first was the Norwegian monopoly Norsk Tipping and Germany’s market leader Tipico. These were two very good signings for us which today are active and getting really good revenue. 2019’s key signing in this regard was Flutter. All of Flutter’s existing casino transactions now go via us, and Spain is the first launch region for us in Q1, having negotiated for a long time and eventually having signed in Q4 of last year.

EGR: What does the overall business pivot lead to?

EG: It leads to higher standards all the way around. And the beauty of working with lots of companies is that your efforts get rewarded. The move also allows a certain freedom to invest, which becomes possible to do when you’re dealing with large clients. And this also leads to a fun experience but, overall, it’s still all about user experience and making life as easy as possible for the operator.

A move away from the turnkey solutions towards selling our products in isolation has enabled us to sign some very large clients in the last couple of years

EGR: What are your expectations having acquired Spearhead Studios?

EG: Spearhead is an interesting company and our motivation for acquiring it was quite straightforward. Today, we have these enormous amounts of content on casino across each tier-one provider and many other clients. We’ve come to believe it would also make sense for us to offer clients something from our own studio or even have the means to do so. Operators are now getting more and more conscious of their ability to attract and demand features from the games, and the acquisition gives us greater scope given this new ability to develop games of our own. It remains to be seen how we’ll progress, but the initial intent is to release 10-12 new games throughout the first half of 2020.

Ebbe Groes, EveryMatrix CEO, is a quick-thinking entrepreneur with a successful track record in launching online ventures. Groes founded the company in 2008 and since then he grew the business from an egaming start-up to an established technology provider, currently catering to several tier-one operators in the industry.

The original version of this interview has been published by EGR Intel on January 27, 2020, under the title EveryMatrix on the B2B pivot.