The Israeli start-up Oberwolf did not need money. In fact, he has already raised more than $ 50 million this year. But when venture capital fund gaming partner Andreessen Horowitz – one of Silicon Valley’s top funds – put in a $ 75 million check, he was not told no.
Oberwolf is a long-established start-up company that was established a decade ago, but Pivot, which carried out a company that produces game plugins and extensions, a company that provides platforms for game developers, has made it one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world. The fact that it economizes the amateur developer industry and enables the growth of the Matevers – three-dimensional virtual worlds in which gamers live for many hours during the day, has made it one of the most coveted commodities in the gaming world.
Perhaps this is why Jonathan Lai, the crypto and gaming partner of Andersen Horowitz has joined the board. He is a partner in gaming companies such as Alody and Mountain Top, and was a partner in the fund’s investments in Roblux, currently one of the fastest growing 3D worlds in the gaming field, with a population of more than 200 million players daily.
Move the creator layer around the metavars
Overwolf is a platform that allows creators to develop new games, generate revenue from advertisements and subscription fees, manage the active communities on top of the games, protect against inappropriate content and help new players learn the rules of the game. The platform also has a file management and storage system, a payment interface and a virtual store for downloading content and other extensions.
Unlike Unity or Enril – 3D game development engines used by large game studios – Overwolf caters to amateur developers and small studios that produce extensions and apps for existing games like Roblux, Minecraft, Fortnite, League of Legends and World of Warcraft. Uri Marshand, the CEO and one of the founders of the company, calls them “the creative layer that lives around the Mowers games.”
Uri Marshand. CEO and Founder, Overwolf / Photo: Michael Topiol
The creative economy – individual content producers who become opinion leaders, drive audiences on YouTube, Tiktok or Twitter and commercialize their content – is one of the emerging trends in the field of media, and it is immeasurably prominent in the field of gaming.
“Today’s leading social platforms – including YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram – base a huge portion of their power on creators who create content for them for friends, family and the whole community,” says Jonathan Lai, partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “As games continue to become social networks in their own right, content creators for games and the content they produce will also play a very important role in this lineup. Overwolf’s platform allows any player to become a partner in creating their favorite game – thanks to powerful development And monetization tools that allow creators to generate income from their work. “
OVERWOLF publication in Ayalon / Photo: Courtesy of OVERWOLF
The $ 75 million fundraiser from Andreessen Horowitz gives the company a value of just over half a billion dollars. It is not a unicorn, but the company has more than doubled its value since the beginning of the year from $ 212 million in March this year, according to the PitchBook database. Its revenue, estimated at over $ 40 million a year, it generates from a 30% commission on the revenue that developers generate from advertising. By the end of 2021, Overwolf is expected to pay $ 29 million to content creators – almost three times what it paid last year.
The challenges of Overwolf
Today, more than 87,000 creators use the Overwolf platform to build apps and thank games, distribute them and generate revenue from their creations. Over 20 million players use content built on Overwolf every month, and over 15 billion app downloads are recorded and thanked every year.
Despite the success, Oberwolf’s world is not without its challenges. It is not an exclusive partner of the platforms it works with, and other companies – including Minecraft Planet, Nexus and even Microsoft itself – are trying to compete with it for the hearts of content creators.
OVERWOLF publication in Ayalon / Photo: Courtesy of OVERWOLF
As part of its campaign to increase its staff from 92 today to 140 in less than a year, Oberwolf recently joined the trend of recruiting employees on the Ayalon axis, joining other gaming companies including Palarium, Playtica and Saipley that used street ads to attract the attention of Potential candidates.