Anton Gauffin, Huuuge CEO: The next chapter.
The next chapter
On August 31st, we announced that a prospectus relating to a potential IPO had been filed with the Warsaw Stock Exchange, although no final decision has been made about whether our shares will be listed, it highlights how far we have come since the company’s humble beginnings 18 years ago. After kicking off the Huuuge era in 2014 by buying back Gamelion, a company that I originally founded in 2002, we have enjoyed explosive success and experienced real Huuuge™ hyper-growth- expanding from a small start-up to the position we are in today with 12 offices globally and +600 employees around the world. Much of that is thanks to all you players, partners, and friends of Huuuge™.
Now is the right time for us to say thank you and on behalf of the whole larger Team Huuuge sending you all massive amounts of positive Huuuge energy.
What’s next?
I could not be more excited of what is ahead of us. The next chapter. It has been one of my entrepreneurial dreams to build a sustainable globally recognised and loved brand that makes a positive dent in the universeum. In order to deliver our Huuuge mission of empowering billions of people to play together, it has been clear from the start that we must learn, evolve, and improve ourselves each and every day. Huuuge filing its prospectus is the result of this “constant improvement” mindset, and a significant step in the company’s evolution.
Graduating from a humble and hungry small start-up into a humble and hungry global company is a process that we have been training and preparing ourselves for years. The filing of our prospectus a few days ago was not the end of our growth story, but very much the beginning of our next chapter. This next chapter, is where we go all the way with our mission and may the journey there be nothing but Huuuge- filled with amazing adventures, fun and collaboration — our “Play Together” way of life.
How?
Some of you may wonder how Huuuge managed to grow so quickly and what is the secret sauce? This is an important question, but I fear there is no single silver bullet nor “one size fits all” answer, and, in many ways, the Huuuge story is a truly unique comeback story. To get to this point has taken from me personally 18 years of non-stop love and devotion to make the dream real. However, irrespective of the circumstances and founding origins of the start-up, the one piece of wisdom that always holds true is that, in order to build something big, you need to build a team. Building a winning team on a global scale is where much of my focus will be as we go into the next chapter.
Why?
Huuuge has a very big mission. To empower billions of players to “Play Together” sounds like a crazy goal, and that is the exciting part. It’s what binds our team of teams together, and attracts our people, partners and players to Huuuge. How to get there is to focus on building a winning global team that executes our unique “Build & Buy” strategy. Experts predict that the mobile gaming market in two years’ time will be bigger than the music market globally and will be snapping at the heels of the global film market both in terms of home entertainment and box office. For companies like ours who are at the forefront of innovation and growth, the trick will be to continue to expand in what is itself a rapidly expanding market. That we do with our Build & Buy strategy.
Our industry has very low barriers to entry, but high barriers to success and there are many small-but-talented game developers around the world hoping to develop the next billion-dollar game — just as we did, all those years ago. While expanding our internal studios, we are on the look-out for the best creators and developers around the globe, with whom we can deliver amazing games to play together, as partners. These partnerships are harmonious when Huuuge’s infrastructure, data analytics, and scaling power is leveraged by exceptional partners with the ambition to create amazing games. As part of the Huuuge Family, developers can reach their full potential and we are excited about building more strategic partnerships in the years ahead.
Looking Forward
Given the times in which we are living, it is important to emphasise that the COVID-19 crisis has not slowed down our expansion, nor reduced our appetite — rather the opposite. During the last few months, we have acquired Playable Platform, in the Netherlands, and Double Star, in Finland. On top of that we have also entered partnership with Cherrypick Games over the publishing of their latest title; Solitaire Adventures, as well as with Universal Games and DreamWorks to launch Trolls Pop, currently live on both iOS and Google Play. When, on top of that, we include all of our in-house development and scaling activities it is easy for me to conclude that there never is a dull day at Huuuge, that’s the way I see it and I’m very proud of this fact.
Today we are at a point where we have a strong pipeline of both internally and externally built games and all this further underlines Huuuge’s ambition of becoming one of the biggest social gaming companies in the world. With that said, I’d like to personally encourage all you game developers out there that have an amazing game and are looking to make the most out of it, please think no more, take action- send us a message- let’s connect and talk more.
We welcome all the creators around the globe to play together with us.
Anton Gauffin, CEO
