Lootcakes, the world’s first network devoted to spenders in free-to-play games, announced that it has raised a $2 million seed funding led by Konvoy Ventures. Other investors that participated in the round include SOSV and GAN Ventures.
The company will use the funds to develop and release a Lootcakes consumer mobile app to sit alongside its current web-based service. In addition, the company plans to open its private beta to more gamers, expand beyond the U.S. market, offer limited edition merch and virtual goods, and forge affiliate partnerships with YouTubers, streamers and game communities.
Lootcakes seeks to unite and empower the players who spend money in free-to-play games, an $88 billion global market in which only one percent of a game’s players typically account for 80% of in-app purchase revenue.
“With data breaches and misuse having sadly become regular news, consumers have never been more aware of their data’s value,” said Lootcakes Co-Founder and CEO, Matt Littin. “Lootcakes aims to be the leader of a new data paradigm we call ‘rewarded data-sharing’, in which consumers actively harness their data to get more of what they love, instead of passively giving it away.”
The company’s $2M seed round was led by Konvoy Ventures, an early-stage video gaming focused venture capital fund. “At Konvoy, our investment focus is to support founders with the pursuit of improving the gaming industry. Lootcakes’ ability to help players recapture the value of their spending data is what resonated with our team. We have a simple belief that if it is your data, you should benefit from it. We are excited to support Matt and the rest of the team as they continue to reward more players and launch in new geographies,” said Konvoy Ventures Managing Partner, Jason Chapman. Chapman has also joined the company’s board of directors.
Earlier investors in Lootcakes include SOSV (the funder of Lootcakes-attended Chinaccelerator), Animoca Brands (blockchain and mobile games developer and publisher) and Haflo AB (family fund of Martin Hauge, former GP of Creandum, an early investor in Spotify).
Lootcakes is currently working on eight titles ranked within the US top 100 grossing games on the App Store and/or Google Play.
The company’s senior team includes Littin, former co-founding member of entertainment consultancy Cinetic Media, alongside President and COO Dan Laughlin and Co-Founder and CTO David Schleupner. Laughlin is a 15-year games industry veteran whose previous stints include Xbox, Flurry (acquired by Yahoo!) and mobile ad network HyprMX (acquired by Advantage Solutions). Schleupner was previously Co-Founder and CTO of Wisdomnet (acquired by Willis Towers Watson), an HR software company with clients such as MGM.
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