FJ Labs Investment Memo
FJ Labs Investment Memo
FJ Labs Investment Memo
// Recommendation:
Founder/team: Strong founding team from Stanford. Recruited tenured employees from Tesla, Apple, and Tappity
Market: Substantial and growing rapidly – Global games market reached $184 billion in 2022 (Newzoo)
Business/product: Strong gaming embedded finance capabilities that enhances the user and developer experience
Terms: Valuation is at market-rate, but fair due to traction. M&A vectors questionable given # of natural acquirers.
// Business:
Business overview: Triumph enables mobile developers to monetize their games through real money gaming and e-sports
competitions. The Company’s API, designed to replace or augment existing monetization channels, allows players to securely
wager funds on the outcomes of thousands of mobile games.
Supply
o Profiles: Creative game studios or select mobile games that integrate with Triumph to overlay their in-game
wagering technology in the gaming experience
o Pain points and value prop: Mobile game monetization is outdated and inefficient for suppliers
In-app advertisements: Gamer’s experience disrupted by intrusive ads and engagement rates are at
risk of being negatively impacted
In-app purchases: “Pay-to-win” mechanics hurts the user experience as it undermines fairness and
continuously building out new purchasable content can become exhausting and inefficient
Value prop: Triumph’s wagering platform can mitigate developer’s unprofitable unit economics
through an innovative monetization channel
Demand
o Profiles: 18-to 45-year-old mobile game users who crave a transparent wagering platform
o Pain points and value prop: Industry competitors lack technological infrastructure to integrate various
mobile games at scale and safety when wagering among parties remains an issue
Value Prop: Triumph has a robust user interface and has established payments partnership with
checkout.com to ensure safe user-to-user transactions on platform
Market dynamics:
o Mobile Gaming Growth - In 2021, mobile games were a $98 billion market in 2021 and will continue to be
the largest and fastest-growing segment of the global games market, growing at a 11.88% CAGR from 2022
to 2028 (SkyQuest).
o Favorable Industry Tailwinds - Triumph benefits from the new iOS update as it requires users to opt-in to
data tracking features which decreases the efficacy of targeted ads. Businesses are expected to expand the
scope of the more profitable in-app transactions instead of targeted ads.
Competitive landscape: Triumph primarily competes with alternative monetization services for mobile game content.
Skillz Games main industry rival, but are an unfavorable partner for developers from a monetization perspective
o Differentiation: First real money skill-based gaming platform that has been able to successfully navigate
regulatory nuances, unlike competitors. Triumph does not compete with developers, but instead focused on
providing infrastructure to these parties.
Acquisition/sales channels: As Triumph scales, content on its platform is expected to attract users, increasing the size
of its audience, which attracts more developers to create new interactive experiences using their platform, producing a
powerful network effect. More games better optimized matchmaking/algorithms More real-time competition
Natural virility of games drives user flywheel (In 2020, 42% of hardcore game installs came from organic channels)