Putting the Tech to the Test – Ebbe Groes Interview for Gambling Insider

Ebbe Groes, CEO of EveryMatrix, speaks in this interview to Gambling Insider about the latest technological developments and how they have shaped the company’s evolution and identity over the years.

We have initially started out with BetBrain in 2008, a large odds comparison site at that time, which continues to offer today one of the largest selection of odds from more than 180 bookmakers.

Soon after, EveryMatrix was founded with the aim to creating a fully flexible and tailored software solution for operators whilst working with high-profile iGaming partners.

That was the starting point for EveryMatrix and from that moment on our company has been growing fast since we started and we presently have dedicated, highly skilled and hard-working staff employed in offices from Europe and Asia.

The years went by and EveryMatrix is now a complete platform provider offering a fully-managed sportsbook, the largest casino content aggregator on the market, a remarkable agent/affiliate product and now a payment processing solution offering access to over 100 payment solutions.

However, we didn’t get to this point easily and a chain of changes occurred for us to be able to deliver better products and faster implementation.

Over the last years and especially in 2016, we have been quite busy recreating our software platform using advanced technologies. During this time, our entire purpose was to deliver answers to our clients’ challenges, improve scalability and offer a better user experience.

If we want to grow, we need our products to keep up with the requests in the market.

That’s why, we have our sportsbook platform increasing the sports events coverage and adding more betting options to reach 25,000 live events per month. Our casino platform continues to maintain its top position as the largest casino aggregator with 4,000+ games from a large collection of vendors.

In the last 12 months alone, we launched our payment product – MoneyMatrix – which can address operators’ demands for a better stand-alone solution in a single platform, a single contract and just one integration.

Additionally, we launched PartnerMatrix, a dual affiliate and agent system for our clients which allows affiliates to operate as agents and at the same time the agents can operate as affiliates. Further on, our product can be included by any software provider in their platform offering alongside their products.

But technology is nothing if we don’t find the right commercial context for our products. So, we placed people in Bucharest, Malta, Copenhagen, Yerevan and Manila, making sure to have in the same location account managers and development teams to help smooth the process from sales to the final launch.

I said it many times before that our company’s growth should take place in an organic manner, without assuming big steps or large acquisitions. Only by following a harmonious path, we’ll be able to attract and keep talented people with us while moving forward.

From a technological perspective, we improved the Web API approach to front-end so that our clients can build sites by themselves and come with a different gaming identity.

Next, we understood how important CRM and business intelligence is for player retention and value optimization. We know that besides players’ journey through the site, operators themselves need to feel at ease jumping into the back-office and find the necessary data to implement new elements by themselves.

So, it’s not all about us, it’s also about our clients’ success and helping them grow. To this effect, today, EveryMatrix is servicing 70+ clients from all over the world.

If 2015 and 2016 were all about rebuilding our software and reinventing our solutions to be sold as stand-alone products, 2017 and the following 2018 are the years when we put them to the test in front of our clients and our partners.

We started as a start-up dedicated company that brings new brands to life. And while this is an important part of our company’s evolution, we recently shifted the focus into servicing more established clients such as Tipico, Norsk Tipping, 188Bet and K8.

What the future may bring

It’s not easy to come up with a clear forecast for the years to come.

I consider product modularization to remain an important element in large companies’ perspectives for long and short term. In addition, flexibility remains one of our company’s pillars and our latest products have been designed to allow easy integration of APIs from content suppliers, payment processors and 3rd party software companies.

I do see an important emphasis placed on regulation in the following years and an increased attention to establishing better frameworks for operators and software providers.

The interest continues to grow for Asia and large platform builders and established operators look to participate and understand the passion for gambling displayed in the Asian region. For this reason, EveryMatrix preserved a team in Philippines and opened development centers in China and Vietnam.

I truly believe that we’ll be an important part of this growing industry and close to where the real action takes place.

The original version of this article has been published by Gambling Insider on September/October 2017 under the title Putting the tech to the test.