Tag: Aquisitions/Mergers

• Acquisition of PickGuru creates a new division, Dizplai Gaming
• New division to strengthen Dizplai’s end-to-end offering with new level of services to Dizplai clients

Dizplai, a leading media experience company, trusted by global sports rights holders, brands, betting companies and broadcasters to transform passive audiences into engaged communities, has today announced the 100% acquisition of PickGuru, the most customer-centric, free to play, gaming platform on the market.

PickGuru provides smart solutions that drive audience and commercial objectives for today’s multi-channel bookmakers, publishers and rights holders. PickGuru’s solutions enable partners to quickly and easily create predictor and fantasy games for their platforms, and drive both deeper engagement and commercialisation opportunities.

The acquisition brings together two innovators in the fan engagement space, creating the new division, Dizplai Gaming. This division will expand Dizplai’s end-to-end offering and drive even greater experiences for fans across both first and second screens.

“We fundamentally believe that when audiences are compelled, through a gamified approach, to interact, it makes content more engaging, more commercially valuable, and enables it to grow and, ultimately, retain audiences,” said Ed Abis, CEO Dizplai. “The acquisition of Pickguru as a business, and the team of people who will join Dizplai, will enable us to supercharge that approach, offering a whole different level of services to our clients, thus driving our overarching strategy.”

Paul Watkins, PickGuru: “Dizplai and Pickguru have a collective vision, and this acquisition enables us to accelerate product developments that enables us to build on the Dizplai mantra of “Gamifying the Game”. Fans want to be part of the action and love predicting outcomes, collectively we can deliver on this. Watch this space!”

Paul Cobley, PickGuru: “The Pickguru platform was built on the principle of flexibility. We are committed to enabling our partners to quickly and easily create gamified experiences for their platforms that drive both deeper engagement and commercialisation opportunities. This is an extremely exciting time for us.”

Following the acquisition of PickGuru, Dizplai announced two new senior roles, in line with the growth of the business, with Paul Watkins as Chief Financial Officer and Paul Cobley as Director of Gaming.

Increasingly considered as the ultimate fan solution for live sports owners and creators, Dizplai fuses tech, creative and content experiences to create engaged communities for sports brands and organisations. Every day, millions of sports fans tune in to live broadcasts, which have been enhanced using the Dizplai platform, from companies as diverse as Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Manchester City, Liverpool FC, SuperTri, William Hill and The United Stand.

2024 has been a big year for Dizplai:

• Launched Dizplai Creative, a new creative agency focused on driving greater audience engagement and brand value through content innovation and technology
• Announced by Comcast as one of the ten startups chosen for the 2024 Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator program, powered by Boomtown.
• Winner of the Best Technology for Match Day Operations and Experience award at the 2024 Sports Technology Awards

Sphaira Innovation, a not-for-profit harnessing the power of people and technology to make positive change, has acquired video games market insights specialist Playmob.

The deal, for an undisclosed sum, creates a formal relationship between Playmob and Sphaira Innovation’s PlanetPlay, which is bringing the games industry and players together to fight climate change.

Playmob CEO Jude Ower – who now becomes Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Sphaira UK – has worked closely with PlanetPlay on the launch of its Make Green Tuesday Moves campaign, which aims to help games studios and players make important real-world impact in the fight against climate change.

Alongside PlanetPlay CEO Rhea Loucas, Ower also recently led a games industry delegation to the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Climate Promise event at UN HQ in New York – an initiative to support countries as they increase their climate action contributions.

Meanwhile, Ower is also the Co-Founder of the Playing For The Planet Alliance and Co-Author of the recently published book ‘Gaming for Good: Unlocking the Power of Gaming to Create a Better World for Us All’, which also supports green projects via PlanetPlay.

And in 2021, she worked with the UNDP on the ‘People’s Climate Vote’, the biggest survey of consumer attitudes towards climate change, which was facilitated through Playmob’s innovative game insights platform and reached 33 million gamers worldwide. The survey had 1.2 million validated votes in 50 countries around the world.

She is speaking this week at the UK Government’s Department for Business & Trade GREAT FUTURES event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she is discussing how the UK video games industry can work with Saudi Arabia in areas such as gaming and sustainability. She is joined at the event by Sphaira Innovation UK Chairman and Sphaira Innovation AG Board Member Dirk van Daele.

Working alongside PlanetPlay under the Sphaira Innovation umbrella, Playmob is again working with the UNDP on a new and even more ambitious international study of whether people consider climate change to be a global emergency, and how they would like their countries to tackle the issue.

Sphaira Innovation UK CSO Jude Ower said: “Playmob’s mission is closely aligned with PlanetPlay, and we are delighted to announce that we are merging our important efforts, and Playmob is being acquired by PlanetPlay. Through the projects we have been working on together, it is clear that our partnership is a strong move for our industry and pushing the sustainability x gaming agenda forward. PlanetPlay and Sphaira is the right home for Playmob and we are excited for the next part of our green gaming journey together.”

Sphaira Innovation UK Chairman & Sphaira Innovation AG Board Member Dirk van Daele offered: “After having been accepted by major game studios and music artists in supporting our not-for-profit eco donate platform, we are excited for Playmob and Jude to join us. Her efforts and established track record in ‘playing for good’ will help us to scale even faster for the benefit of the climate.”

PlanetPlay CEO Rhea Loucas added: “PlanetPlay as a disruptive NPO is constantly seeking innovative solutions for engaging billions of gamers as part of our mission to combat climate change. We have already been working closely for a long time with Playmob and Jude Ower on a few exciting projects; with the acquisition, we will be able to join forces and achieve our goal together. With three billion players around the world, and through the combination of our gaming and sustainability efforts, we can all collectively make a difference for our planet.”