Interactive BETCADE
Betcade - back from the brink
Having informed the gaming community that it was closing its doors in January, Android-focused mobile gambling App store, Betcade, is back in business
David Chang, CEO, Betcade
Having been acquired by US-based privaty equity business, Columbia Ventures, everything’s set for a mid-year go-live. G3 spoke to Betcade CEO, David Chang, about the last few months.
WHY THE DECISION TO SHUTTER THE BUSINESS? WAS IT PREMATURE? WAS IT THE RIGHT DECISION IN HINDSIGHT?
I was always sure about our value proposition, it was about finding an investor that believed the same. We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve been able to continue our journey by finding a new investor. It has been taxing, but also a good learning event and a validating one too. All that hard work, communication and dedication has meant that we have been able to turn-around the company and commence operations again.
P78 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /
247.COM
At the end of the day, Betcade’s investor was acquired by a new investor that didn’t see a fit for us in their portfolio. It had nothing to do with our business metrics or our prospects, it was simply that our business model didn’t work with the new private equity’s publicly-stated business model. We were in a situation in which either the US$4bn private equity firm could change their business model for us, or tell us that it was the end of the road. I understand it. It’s a bad break, but it’s certainly rational. And since we were given such a short notice period, and with no alternate investors lined-up, they said we should do the appropriate thing and plan to close the business.
During that whole process we were looking for other investment options, but in the grand scheme of things we hadn’t planned for this scenario. We had salaries to pay, vendors to pay, and to run the business as though nothing was happening, without giving people a heads-up while running the bank account to zero - I felt that was totally the wrong thing to do. So we were preparing to shutdown the operations as we were searching for a new investor. Fortunately we did.
WHAT’S HAPPENED SINCE THE CLOSURE?
I have been reaching out to all our partners on the store; LeoVegas, BetFred, GVC etc., giving them the update. I’ve been explaining that we had a close call, that our new investor is enthusiastic about the business, and I’ve been ensuring that all our partners are happy doing business with us again. It’s afforded our vendors the opportunity to voice their concerns too and as such, it’s been a way for us to press the reset button and approach these relationships like we’re starting over. As it turns out - all is good. We’ve been told that Betcade is more valuable than ever, and asked when we’re going to start our ad campaigns and customer acquisition? So I’ve been preparing for that. We had to get our systems back online, but I can share with you that we’ve started spending money once again on customer acquisition and we are going to be continually ramping that up as we get our operations back online.
IS THIS THE SAME BETCADE AS BEFORE?
I think it’s the same. Te nice thing for us is that now we’re owned by a private investor rather than a public investor, we are going to be able to be more response to the needs of the market and in a quicker fashion too. Nothing has changed about the store, we still want to pursue payments, but one thing we may do that’s different is to add more territories to the store, more quickly than we did before. Now we have a private company that owns us we don’t have to
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