Changing the ad and loyalty space by building a gaming and voucher platform for brands and major cities.
Business overview
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.pointvoucher.com |
| Sectors | Games Digital Mixed B2B/B2C |
| Company number | 10670173 |
| Incorporation date | 14 Mar 2017 |
Idea
Introduction
Pointvoucher is a mobile gaming plug & play marketing and loyalty platform offering high-quality mobile games to brands and major cities like London, New York, and Paris. We want access to the 2.1bn mobile gamers across the globe and plan to launch 8 new city games over the next 2 years.
How it works:
1. Play & Earn voucher points for the time you spend playing
2. Claim vouchers from great brands
3. Redeem vouchers at local stores
Pointvoucher is a platform that earns money from multiple revenue streams with a goal of becoming huge in terms of users and content. We use mobile games to attract users and vouchers to keep them on the platform.
In 2020, Pointvoucher plan to release a software development kit that will give 3rd party mobile developers access to the platform. This will enable them to monetise more effectively. We believe this will scale the business and elevate Pointvoucher into a mobile gaming entertainment platform with many great games where users get value in return for playing.
Intended impact
We believe that customer loyalty comes from great experiences, generosity and having fun - together.
With an ever-changing advertising landscape, Pointvoucher has introduced a new take on how brands can connect with customers using gaming and vouchers. We have already proven that branded mobile gaming combined with vouchers is an alternative to other marketing channels.
It keeps people engaged for hours, drives traffic to stores, collects lots of permissions and data, generates revenue and a lot more.
With six high-quality mobile games already released we have proven that this concept, works across brands, industries, and game genres. It's a marketing swiss-army knife that will enable brands to reach people in a new and much more appealing way than traditional and digital push advertising.
Substantial accomplishments to date
- Six games released in two markets.
- Five branded games in local markets, one city game towards a global market.
- Game Partner agreement with London & Partners, Mr. Bean license agreement, media agreement with VIACOM/MTV and more.
- Retail Game Partner agreement with one of Denmark's largest Supermarket chains Dansk Supermarket, as well as Tivoli Gardens, CallMe (Telia), and Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
- 75+ voucher partners.
- Founder investment 8.36m DDK (approx. £980k). Private investors have invested £893k since launch.
- Total number of game downloads: 800,000+.
- Total number of vouchers sold: 267,935.
- Registered Users: 359,544.
- Generated $500,000+ in revenue since launch*
- Headquartered in London and development office in Copenhagen.
- 24 employees and 11 consultants
*Based on unaudited accounts
Monetisation strategy
We have multiple revenue streams built into this concept:
Now:
- In-app purchases in the games: Gamers can buy lives and boosters. Revenue to date: 205K GBP.
- Game partner fees: Our game partners pay an upfront fee. Revenue to date: 340K GBP.
- In-app advertising: We use 3rd party video and banner ad networks in the city games e.g. Facebook and Fyber.
Soon:
- Platform memberships: Users will get access to special vouchers, discounts and e.g. extra in-game lives and boosters for a weekly/monthly fee.
Later:
- Kickback from voucher redeems: Voucher partners will pay a small fee every time a voucher is redeemed in their store.
- Data and email/push notification marketing permissions: We collect a variety of user data when the users register on the platform including personal data, game and voucher data, in-app purchases and geo-data. We also collect email marketing permissions to Pointvoucher and our partners.
Use of proceeds
Pointvoucher is raising funds to support our growth strategy, which aims to boost marketing campaigns, strengthen product development and recruit key people.
Growth: Local and international user acquisition/marketing campaigns to generate downloads for the city games
Product: Continue improving the games and the platform to increase quality, revenue, user conversion, retention, time to market and more.
Team: Recruit key people for the development, sales and marketing team to secure and maximize the successful launch and upkeep of upcoming games.
Please note, the company has an outstanding loan from an existing investor of £247,000 with a 7% p.a. interest rate. This will either be repaid in a future round raising over £500k, or repaid by March 2019. None of the funds from this round will be used to repay this loan.
Market
Target market
City games:
Casual mobile games based on a city theme and in collaboration with a city and a world-famous ambassador to promote the game. We will launch one game per major city like London, Paris, Dubai and New York targeting locals, tourists and general mobile gamers. Each game connects local businesses with the users that play, earn points and redeem vouchers in the city. Example of a city game: “Play London with Mr. Bean”.
Branded Games:
A casual gaming platform wrapped in a branded universe and marketed towards mobile gamers through the brands owned and paid channels and Pointvoucher’s platform. Example of branded games: “Big One”, “3 På Stribe”, “Power Per” and “Tal Ordentligt”.
Pointvoucher Software Developer Kit (from 2020):
The software development kit will target game developers worldwide and give them access to Pointvoucher’s reward platform, advertisers and users in exchange for their users registering on the platform.
Characteristics of target market
The Global Mobile Gaming Market Size.
- It was estimated by the end of 2017 there were 2.1bn mobile gamers worldwide, and this number is expected to further grow to almost 2.7bn by 2021.
- Mobile gaming generated $50bn in revenue in 2017 and expected to increase to $72.3bn by 2020.
- The United Kingdom’s 32.4 million gamers were expected to spend $4.2bn in 2017, making it the 5th largest games market in the world.
- London has more than 19m international visitors per year and top 10 cities have more than 150m international visitors.
- More and more FMCG and retail brands are using gamification to boost engagement and loyalty.
Pointvoucher has launched four branded mobile games in the Danish market. They have been downloaded by more than 7% of the Danish population and topped the Danish App Store hit lists.
On the UK market Pointvoucher has launched one branded mobile game targeting the UK audience and one City Game targeting the global market.
Marketing strategy
To acquire users, expand the platform and scale revenue we plan to use a combination of different user acquisition networks, influencers in local markets, reinvesting a share of game revenue in further user acquisition and cross-promotion between the games on the platform. Furthermore, we will rely on brand licensing agreements and use them to grow organic search and traffic in through their channels and the AppStore / Google Play to promote the game. In the agreement we have with Endemol Shine Group (Mr Bean) they promote the game through their Facebook page towards 77m followers.
To onboard new partnerships, cities and projects, we will use PR, content marketing, network and our partnership team.
Competition strategy
Overall, Pointvoucher is competing with larger entertainment platforms to get a "share" of the user’s time, such as Netflix and HBO.
The competition between mobile games is fierce and is usually dominated by larger game providers like King, Glu and Rovio. However, we believe Pointvoucher has an advantage over these by working closely with strong brands and ambassadors to help promote the games.
Pointvoucher is a pioneer when developing mobile games that target tourists and promote major tourist destinations around the world. These games are bolstered by a solid loyalty program and diverse voucher shops, ideal for promoting local businesses and generating footfall. There are few direct competitors in the market that offer similar “reward based” concepts, with Kiip as the most relevant competitor. However, they do not produce mobile games themselves and do not offer a loyalty program.