Hi Enrico. You are a very experienced, well-known figure in the industry. What was it about Pariplay and the stage of development the company is in that made it a good fit for you to join?
Good morning, Matt! Hello everyone! This is Enrico and I’ve joined Pariplay one month ago so it’s still very, very recent. What I love and what excites me about Pariplay is the moment that I’m joining and the fact that we’re an aggregator. In fact, we are the leading aggregator present in many different regulated markets and being an aggregator gives us a fantastic vantage point, a fantastic perspective on the entire industry both from an operator’s perspective, as well from a vendor’s, from a supplier’s perspective. I find this very exciting and Pariplay is a company that is 10 years old, now has been accelerating, hyper growing compared to the rest of the market and it’s now at a stage where the growth that we’re having, need to scale even more from organization perspective. So, I’m very excited to join Adrian and the team at this moment in time and to bring my experience to make a difference and allow Pariplay to continue to grow at the rate that it has shown in these last few years.
How have you found it so far working under the umbrella of Aspire Global and what advantages has this relationship presented for the progress of Pariplay?
Aspire Global is a fantastic group company, however the entities that are under the Aspire Global group are operating very independently. In fact, Pariplay itself has its own brand, is its own entity and we operate in different markets and in different areas of the value chain. There are great synergies and we leverage the synergies, but what Aspire Globe’s philosophy with Pariplay and with BtoBet is to let the companies continue to have their own brand identity, their own commercial focuses, their own product focuses and allow to develop the synergies where it makes commercial and product sense.
Looking specifically at LatAm, you are relatively new to the market but have made a number of recent moves there. What is the potential in the region for both aggregation platforms and games studios?
Latin America is a great opportunity for Pariplay and for the market industry in general. There are number of countries that have been already regulated and there are others that are in a process of regulating. As such it is a relatively exciting and potentially very big growth market for anyone and we, at Pariplay, have identified it as being a strategic market where we are putting a specific commercial focus and product focus. We have hired a LatAm market specialist that has started with us about a month ago. His name is Jorge and we are creating a specific package of content, of game content from selected suppliers that we have in our portfolio. We have over 80 suppliers of content and we are going to create this package that has both tier 1 suppliers with tier 1 content, but also, and this is something aggregators like Pariplay can really bring, some local suppliers, some suppliers of, for example, land-based content that is very popular in those markets, in those territories but that are not necessary known internationally by the big global companies. This flexibility, the technical flexibility and the commercial flexibility that we bring with our model in addition to certification and licenses that we have and the one that we will obtain puts Pariplay in a great position to develop the market further.
Many eyes are on Brazil, waiting for regulation there to finally be implemented. The same is also true of many other countries other than Colombia. Will regulation in the LatAm region continue to roll out very slowly, or do you think that once major regions start to commit others will quickly follow?
I hope that the regulation in general will happen more quickly. I think this is everybody’s desire and dream be that South America or North America and by the way we have a similar focus in North America as well as a company. Now with regards to Brazil this has been in the pipeline for a while. I don’t expect it to create kind of a snowball effect. I think every county has its own journey and I think very similarly to what happened in Europe and what is happening in the United States every state or every country has their own journey, their own political journey, and they will be eventually introducing regulation when the time is right for them. I don’t expect regulation in Brazil to have a snowball effect and open the flood gates. I think it will be a progressive and again if you look at Europe and draw parallels, important countries such as the Netherlands or Germany are just regulating now probably 10 years after countries like Italy regulated first ones. It will take some time. This is my expectation but of course I hope that it will happen quickly.
Are LatAm markets generally going to be easier to enter than US states for providers such as Pariplay, given that operators there might not have the resources to develop their own proprietary technologies?
Potentially, yes. Also, the fact that one can enter with a dot-com offering Latin America presently whilst this was not possible in the US. I think this is making the Latin America potentially a faster adoption or a faster growing market. The US is mighty of course and there is a lot of focus on the US and various states and when they will regulate. But in certain the fact is we have, as Pariplay, a technology stack that is modern, proven and that is regulated is going to allow the companies that are in Latin America with a ready-made technical solution and then they have always the choice whether they prefer to develop their own technology stack and be more independent or to rely on aggregators or aggregator to compliment the direct deals that they might do with the tier 1 suppliers. I expect it to be a mix and maybe to start with a company like Pariplay for their entire product offering because we can start very quickly and eventually as they grow and the business progresses and advances and I think this is the inevitable journey that some of these larger operators will end up doing some direct deals with the larger tier 1 vendors but we would’ve fulfilled our role in the value chain and done some good business for everyone.
