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Azerion Q1 2023 results and progress with the consolidation and integration of previous acquisitions

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Azerion announced its Q1 2023 results. Additionally,  Azerion has announced its significant progress with the consolidation and integration of previous acquisitions.

Q1 2023 highlights

  • Resilient growth in the Platform and Premium Games segments, with Net revenue of almost € 113 million, up from € 94 million in Q1 2022. Adjusted EBITDA of almost € 9 million up by 48% compared to Q1 2022, reflecting improved margins due to accelerated integration of previous acquisitions, as well as cost optimisation.
  • Upgraded expected annualised cost savings to at least € 15 million from at least € 10 million, excluding any effects from foreign exchange. The expected savings are compared to the January 2023 baseline.
  • Launch of Performance by Azerion, enriching campaigns across all features and platforms, driving increased performance across the full advertisement funnel.
  • Roll out of proprietary ad format Oneskin, an integrated rich media native product that creates a highly scalable feature on the Azerion Platform.
  • Expanded brand licensing partnerships with SmileyWorld, Mattel and L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. Fashion House™ to create engaging in game branded advertising content in metaverse social games Habbo, Hotel Hideaway and Woozworld.
  • Successfully completed the legal merger between Azerion Holding B.V. and Azerion Group N.V. to simplify financial reporting.

CEO Umut Akpinar said: I am pleased with our continued growth in underlying profitability in Q1 2023. We made significant progress integrating previous acquisitions and further optimising our operations, whilst releasing new products and services to our current and new advertising and publisher partners. We are working hard to make our platform more efficient, better serving our clients, increasing our resilience and positioning us to capture exciting market opportunities. We expect to continue improving our underlying profitability in Q2 2023, which provides us confidence in achieving our strategic and financial objectives for 2023 and beyond.

Azerion makes significant progress with the consolidation and integration of previous acquisitions

Today, Azerion has shared further details on the progress made in consolidating and integrating previously acquired businesses, which led to the launch of new products, market expansions, technological improvements and expected cost savings.

Azerion’s initiatives to integrate and consolidate the different technologies, teams, brands, offices, and back-office activities have progressed well in Q1 2023 and are expected to result in annualized savings of at least EUR 15 million compared to January 2023 baseline. This is a significant improvement to the previously communicated expectation of at least EUR 10 million annualized savings.

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After its listing on Euronext Amsterdam in early 2022, Azerion completed several acquisitions, most of them during the second half of last year. Since the beginning of 2023, Azerion has set out as one of its priorities to accelerate the integration of past acquisitions and make Azerion’s platform more efficient and fit to scale up later in 2023. Below some examples of successful integration initiatives:

Ad sales

Over the last few years Azerion has built direct sales capabilities and expertise across various markets, working closely with advertisers and media agencies to maximise their results.

  • Infinia (audience targeting technology with local direct sales presence in the Iberia and LATAM regions – acquired in March 2022) was rebranded into Azerion and completed the integration of teams, offices and back-office. Furthermore, Infinia’s technical capabilities to create and target audiences to better reach exact audiences has been integrated and shared with other regions and Azerion offices.
  • Hybrid Theory (audience targeting technology with local direct sales presence in the UK, US and APAC regions – acquired in November 2022) has rebranded into Azerion and also merged all its teams into the Azerion teams for the relevant markets. As with Infinia, their technology and knowledge are now used group wide to offer our clients expertise and execution in brand performance marketing.
  • Mmedia (local direct sales presence in the Netherlands – acquired in October 2022) has been further integrated in the Dutch operation, merging sales, publisher and monetization expertise into the Dutch operation.

Overall, the sales teams in the UK, Germany, France, Nordics, US, Italy and Benelux regions have further integrated offerings and products and are increasingly selling easy-to-use, brand-safe and competitively priced solutions to advertisers and media agencies, so that they can reach affordable audiences at scale everywhere and receive better outcomes.

Adtech

Azerion continuously invests in launching creative ad formats and optimising its advertising technology. The focus has been on innovating with unique proprietary ad formats as well as using technology to reduce complexity for advertisers and publishers.

  • TargetSpot (audio ad format technology – acquired in November 2022) has enabled its audio supply technology into Azerion’s wider SSP platform. Product development has been centralized in Amsterdam, while teams in the US and Belgium have been integrated into the relevant Azerion teams. Offices and back-office activities have been merged and centralized.
  • Vlyby (video ad format technology – acquired in October 2022) has integrated into Azerion’s German operations. It also further integrated with previously acquired company Zoomin (video development) to offer smart content propositions to advertisers and publishers. This new video product is currently under expansion.
  • Madvertise (mobile advertising technology – acquired in July 2022) has been integrated into Azerion’s French and German operations, including teams and back-office.

Curated content

One of the key elements of Azerion value proposition is to offer unique reach to advertisers. In order to bring audiences together at scale, Azerion develops its own digital content and partners with thousands of digital publishers. Over the last few years Azerion has built publisher monetization capabilities and expertise, working closely with publishers to maximise their results.

  • AdPlay (publisher monetization services – acquired in November 2022) has integrated into Azerion’s operations in Italy and has been chosen as Azerion’s publisher monetization services offerings for the Italian market.
  • Takerate (publisher monetization services – acquired in October 2022) has merged into Adplay, generating the efficiencies relating to sales teams, operations, analytics, development and back- office.

Overall, Azerion is further consolidating its publisher monetization services into a single stack. The first step was to consolidate the offerings per region (Italy: Adplay; France: Adverline; US and Nordics: Pubgalaxy; DACH, Benelux and UK: Mmedia; Nordics: Keymobile). Full global integration is expected to be initiated later in 2023.

Next steps

The integration efforts are expected to continue through Q2 and Q3 2023 to make Azerion’s platform more efficient and ready to further scale up. These efforts will include the roll-out of the acquired products and services across all Azerion regions to ensure one single set of offering to advertisers and publishers, as well as rebranding of products and entities and legal mergers and acquired subsidiaries. More updates will be provided over the course of 2023.

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Games Lift 2025: Hamburg Incubator Supports Five new Developer Teams

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Five teams have convinced the Games Lift awarding committee of the potential of their game projects.  On September 8, the Games Lift incubator will launch its next round, supporting teams with a one-year workshop and mentoring program featuring input from international industry experts and 15,000 euros in financial support. More than 30 experts from the Games Lift Network will share their experience with the teams and provide professional and tailored support for the game projects. In addition to the extensive exchange, mentoring, and many workshops, the teams will travel to an international industry event together. This combination of benefits makes Games Lift unique as an incubator for games in Germany. The Games Lift Incubator is organized and run by Gamecity Hamburg on behalf of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

In its sixth year since its introduction, a total of 43 teams and solo developers applied to participate in the Games Lift Incubator – more than twice as many as in previous years. The decision on the five participating teams was made by the award committee, consisting of Kristin von der Wense (Publishing Producer, Daedalic Entertainment), Ole Schaper (Managing Director, The Sandbox Hamburg (Sviper GmbH)), Heiko Gogolin (Managing Director, Rocket Beans Entertainment), and Tobias Graff (Co-Founder Mooneye Studios).

Margarete Schneider, Project Manager at Gamecity Hamburg and also part of the selection committee, said: “We are delighted about the rising awareness and popularity of Games Lift – this year we received applications from seven countries and three continents. However, we also see the growing demand as a sign that, in the current industry situation, low-threshold support programs such as the Games Lift Incubator are becoming even more important. We are therefore very pleased to accompany five Hamburg teams on their way to the successful release of their first title.”

The five games and teams for the Games Lift Incubator 2025 are:

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  • The Wrong Horse by Sharon Sacks & Vincent Will
  • Encaged and Ungraded by Leif Gutowski
  • Fading Skies by Distant Blue
  • Phasmopass by Curio Compass
  • Project: Slimepot by Calluna Games

The Wrong Horse is a colorful murder mystery adventure set at a horse racing track. As a journalist, it is the player’s task to uncover the secrets surrounding the mysterious death of a jockey and identify the perpetrator.

Encaged and Ungraded is a mixture of anomaly horror and job simulation. A shady company forces players into the role of a card grader, where they check various cards for authenticity and quality. But soon, players find themselves searching for eerie and dangerous anomalies – and hopefully they can make it through to the end of their shift.

Fading Skies revives the charm of the PS2 and GameCube era by combining classic 3D platforming with modern action RPG elements. As Ryn, a young woman accompanied by a small magical dragon, players travel through a broken world full of secrets. The mission is to stop the planet’s decay and confront the shadows of a forgotten past.

Phasmopass is a turn-based roguelite. Players lead a team of humans trapped in a never-ending volleyball reality show against ghostly opponents. Powerful items and pacts with other ghosts help players win tournaments to escape the dystopian city of Limbo!

Project: Slimepot (working title) is an action-adventure game in which players explore a dungeon full of monsters, turn them into dishes, and serve them to guests in their tavern. Here, exciting dungeon crawling meets creative cooking and relaxed tavern management.

The post Games Lift 2025: Hamburg Incubator Supports Five new Developer Teams appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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INSPIRED ENTERTAINMENT INTRODUCES THREE NEW iGAMING SLOT RELEASES THIS JULY: CHILI POPPERS™, BICHOS MAGICOS™ & BIGGER PIGGY BANK™

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Inspired Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: INSE), a leading B2B provider of gaming content, systems, and solutions, has announced the release of three new online slot titles this July across UK and Malta iGaming  jurisdictions: Chili Poppers™Bichos Mágicos™, and Bigger Piggy Bank™. Each title is designed to provide distinctive gameplay experiences while delivering strong performance for operators.

Chili Poppers is a spicy, Mexican-themed descendant of the popular Happy Fortune Dragon™, featuring a 5×3 layout with 10 win-lines. Building on proven mechanics, the game introduces pseudo-persistent pots that grow with every Chili Pepper symbol on the centre reel, triggering one of three key features: coin boosts, multipliers, or Free Spins. With locked Wilds and persistent enhancements during Free Spins, Chili Poppers offers explosive win potential and player engagement.

Bichos Mágicos is Inspired first Brazilian Portuguese game. It brings vibrant, cartoon-style charm to an 8-symbol scatter-pays mechanic and fun cascading wins. Multipliers ranging from 2x to 10x can drop throughout the gameplay, culminating in a Mystery Multiplier worth up to 500x after cascades end. Designed for casual players, the game also includes Bonus Buy and Fortune Bet features, giving users more control and faster access to the game’s high-energy Bonus round.

Bigger Piggy Bank, the sequel to Inspired’s successful Big Piggy Bank™, enhances the original’s popular cash collector mechanic with fresh features and more fun ways to win. Players are rewarded with big wins when Collector symbols land on reel five, randomly triggering a Bonus Wheel that offers Free Spins, Prize Pots, or Golden Piggy Free Spins. With the chance to land oversized symbols, Prize Pot Tokens, and a coveted Grand Prize, Bigger Piggy Bank delivers an engaging experience. For added control, players can use the Bonus Buy feature to enter the Bonus directly and Fortune Spins for the opportunity to focus on collecting piggy wins. The Gamble feature allows players to risk their base game wins to win more cash or trigger the bonus game.

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Claire Osborne, Vice President of Interactive at Inspired Entertainment, said: “Inspired’s July lineup showcases an exciting portfolio of new content designed for worldwide success, that’s packed with variety and innovative ways to win. Each title combines proven mechanics with exciting features that we’re confident will resonate across diverse markets, this summer and beyond.”

The post INSPIRED ENTERTAINMENT INTRODUCES THREE NEW iGAMING SLOT RELEASES THIS JULY: CHILI POPPERS™, BICHOS MAGICOS™ & BIGGER PIGGY BANK™ appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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FBM Foundation Brings Relief to Typhoon-hit Communities with a Day of Compassion and Action

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FBM Foundation led a relief operation across Luzon to support the communities affected by Typhoons Crising, Dante and Emong. Through swift mobilization, FBM Foundation prepared and distributed 1,000 relief packages, on July 27th, in Batangas City, Caloocan City, and Quezon City. This gesture offered essential support to hundreds of families facing loss and displacement.

Rapid relief, real impact

The mission was led by Pepe Costa, FBM Foundation Representative in the Philippines, and Lulu Barreras, Community Service Project Coordinator at FBM Foundation.

The first stop of the relief operation was Batangas City, where 500 relief packs were handed out to families affected by rising floodwaters. With homes submerged and communities evacuated, the FBM Foundation was warmly welcomed by the CSWDO – City Social Welfare and Development Office of Batangas City, who expressed heartfelt gratitude for the Foundation’s committed support and active role in ensuring the relief operations were conducted in an orderly and compassionate manner.

The second destination was Barangay 176-C in Caloocan City, where 200 families received emergency supplies. The area had been hit hard by poor drainage and non-stop rains. Thanks to Barangay Captain Nelfa Cabantac, the relief goods were distributed efficiently, ensuring every affected household received the necessary support.

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Finally, the team reached Barangay Talayan, in Quezon City, where 300 relief packages were delivered to flood-stricken residents. This final effort was coordinated with the help of Richard Cabugsanon, a concerned citizen who proactively contacted the Foundation to extend aid to his community.

United by compassion, our volunteers stood ready with 1000 relief packs for families in need

United by solidarity

This one-day mission was made possible by 12 tireless volunteers, whose dedication was instrumental to the success of the initiative. Their efforts ensured not only the delivery of goods but also the presence of empathy, hope, and human connection in moments of crisis.

This swift response reinforces FBM Foundation’s ongoing mission to uplift lives, promote resilience, and act when communities need it the most. From immediate relief to long-term support, the Foundation remains committed to driving sustainable, positive change across the Philippines and beyond.

Heartfelt smiles and shared strength between volunteers and families impacted by the typhoons.

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The post FBM Foundation Brings Relief to Typhoon-hit Communities with a Day of Compassion and Action appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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