Time flies when you’re having fun – it feels like it was just yesterday that we launched the very first Matchmade test campaigns with Futureplay (you guys rule!), but it’s actually already been two years and then some. Or to be more precise, it’s been four years and then some – let’s not forget that Matchmade started out as an indie game studio working on a game about dudes with awesome moustaches robbing banks.
The beta version of Matchmade launched in March 2017, and I’m proud and humbled by everything the team has accomplished since then. We’ve worked with hundreds of amazing gaming companies (including some of the biggest in the industry), we reach close to a billion people through all of our incredible influencer partners, our campaign budgets have grown by more than 5x just in the last year, etc. All of this proves to me that the future of this powerful and quickly growing new channel is in 1) sponsorships that are relevant and respectful towards the audience, 2) a data-driven and results-oriented mindset, and 3) a fair and transparent approach to conducting business.
The original Matchmade team moving in to our first office (a basement in Helsinki) and assembling an important piece of furniture (a bar made of recycled pallets)
We’ve built a great product and great relationships along the way, but it’s equally important that we’ve also built an incredible team of 21 people and a company culture that makes me excited about going to work every day, which in the end is what building a company is all about. Companies are made of people, and exceptional companies are made of exceptional people.
We’re just getting started, but it’s still important to recognize key milestones. So, we’re announcing a few things today.
1. We welcome new investors to the team
We’re happy to announce that we’ve raised over € 4M in new funding led by Korea Investment Partners, with participation from other investors such as our long time backer London Venture Partners, and with additional support from Business Finland.
This funding allows us to tackle some of the more ambitious plans we have for the Matchmade platform, to serve our customers and partners all over the globe better, and to expand our business to new platforms and verticals.
As Sang-ho Park from KIP puts it, “Korea Investment Partners is investing in Matchmade as the company’s solution to one of the fastest growing areas of advertising is sophisticated, scalable and technically advanced. The founding team is very experienced and driven, and they’ve demonstrated great potential.”
I’m personally extremely happy to have Sang-ho join the board of directors of the company, knowing how highly CEOs who have worked with him rate his contributions as a board member. But there are also other people who I’m delighted to welcome to the team.
2. Our team is growing
In the past year, we’ve almost tripled our headcount in Helsinki and Berlin, and today I’m very happy to welcome Jordan “Soma” Tayer to the family as the General Manager for North America. Jordan is an early Twitch employee, a long time Twitch streamer, Forbes “30 under 30” listee, and so on. When he’s not busy setting up our new US HQ in San Francisco, you’ll find him streaming on Twitch.
The Matchmade team today (the bar built in 2016 is not in the picture but still stands)
Needless to say, we’re hiring in Berlin, San Francisco and Helsinki for a wide variety of positions. You should check out the careers page to get to know our awesome team, and to apply to be a part of it. 😉
3. Twitch support is here
We noticed Jordan’s not the only person regularly streaming on Twitch, and I’m borderline giddy to announce that Twitch campaigns are now fully supported on Matchmade.
This is a huge milestone for us, and something that’s been often requested by our partners. Advertisers can now easily find and work with influencers on both YouTube and Twitch, and that of course means Twitch streamers can also now join Matchmade campaigns that are curated specifically for their fans. Check out the video below for a short intro by Jordan:
Matchmade tracks over 3M YouTube channels and over 260k Twitch streamers, and we’ve analyzed over 300M videos and more than 12M streams to date. All this data crunching allows us to deliver well-performing sponsorships that actually make for relevant content for the fans, which has been our goal from day one and makes influencer marketing better for the advertisers, the influencers, and the audience.
We’re just getting started
I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved this far, and I’d once more like to thank all you amazing customers, partners, colleagues, investors and friends for placing your trust in me and my co-founder Leo. Let’s raise a toast to celebrate, but let’s also all show up at the office at a decent time tomorrow morning – we have a lot of work ahead.
-Jiri
PS. Here’s that careers page link again in case you missed it earlier