Meet The Team

James Draper – Founder & CEO

James Draper is the Founder of Bidstack, leading the company through its evolution from being the first iteration of a programmatic digital out of home platform, before pivoting and creating the intrinsic in-game advertising industry. Now, with Bidstack Sports, Bidstack is set to create a third industry-defining product, all within the first 8 years of trading.

Using an aggressive marketing strategy, including sponsoring recognised English football team Norwich City FC, the company attracted worldwide interest from multiple media channels.

In 2017 James agreed a multi-year deal with SEGA Europe’s studio Sports Interactive, for Bidstack to exclusively sell the billboards within Football Manager. This was the birth of in-game advertising.

Since then James has raised over $42 million and led the business to the forefront of the industry he created, the in-game advertising industry, whilst listing on the London Stock Exchange, in 2018.

The irrepressible focus on ensuring Bidstack’s technology is used by multiple stakeholders within the gaming industry, from commercial to licensing and internal marketing teams within studios, whilst empowering media planners worldwide to utilise Bidstack’s proprietary technology to communicate within gameplay to gamers for the first time.

Bidstack has gone from a one-man business to an industry-defining business unlocking the advertising worlds’ billions of dollars to game developers large and small, for the first time.

James leads the companies’ vision and manages the Group day to day.

 

Q: How is Bidstack continuing to evolve?

A: Bidstack’s evolution continues as there are multiple use cases for our technology.  If you boil it down to what the technology does, it is a content management system and a supply side platform.  Our customer is the game developer or publisher.  We enable these studios to monetise spaces in and around their virtual environments as well as engage with their player base with personalised messaging.

In 2023, we launched Bidstack Sports which is a specific product for sports simulation games.  The platform also provides access to the licensing, marketing and commercial teams within the developer or publisher.  It also introduces new customers to the platform such as the rights holders and sports teams who view gaming as a channel to recruit fans.

 

Q: What goal do you have for the company?

A: My goal for Bidstack is to be the most widely adopted gaming supply side platform that significantly contributes to the revenues of game developers across the world.  To achieve this goal, we will cross-pollinate our technology across gaming studios to have multiple seats on our platform to maximise our content management use cases including sports licensing, marketing, fan engagement and user acquisition. 

 

Q: What is the vision for Bidstack over the next 3-5 years?

A: By 2028, Bidstack’s customer mix will be far broader than what it is today, driven by the structural tailwinds in the total and serviceable addressable markets.  It will grow from monetisation, demand-side platforms, resellers, publishers to user acquisition, marketing, sports teams, rights holders, streaming platforms and film. 

The potential for intrinsic in-game advertising in consoles is the holy grail for both advertisers and game developers that will unlock further industry growth.  As awareness rises over the outlook period, Bidstack is confident that it will be the dominant player across the major gaming platforms and ecosystems.

We are also paying close attention to the secondary viewing audience and working with our partners to determine the best way to measure this. Viewers of gaming streams on Twitch or YouTube amplify the reach of in-game placements from our SDK.  When this feature is launched in the coming years it will empower game developers to monetise advertising spaces within their video game environment.

We can envision use cases outside of purely gaming. If we look at TV shows like The Mandalorian, the backdrop is entirely shot in Unreal Engine.  This is without pointing towards a no-coding AI-driven future where games will be easily produced by anyone wishing to play out their fantasy. We can see this already with the likes of Roblox. But, fast forward the next 3-5 years, the user interface and dynamicism will be increased dramatically.

The technology will be doing the heavy lifting.

 

Thomas Bullen – CFO

Thomas joined Bidstack in 2023, adding 20 years of finance experience in financial services and the fast-growing mobile advertising technology space. He previously served as the CFO at AdColony, one of the world’s largest mobile gaming monetisation platforms, where he led a global team of 25 finance professionals. 

Prior to AdColony, Thomas served at the publicly listed parent company Opera Software as a Financial Controller as well as working closely with the corporate development team on acquisitions and post-deal integrations. 

 

Q: How are you preparing Bidstack for growth?

A: I am confident in the go-to-market plan for 2023 which is premised on a diversified revenue strategy. Our plan calls for quarter-on-quarter growth which is skewed towards the second half of the year reflecting the seasonality of the advertising market.  

We are preparing for growth by ensuring resources are optimised and deployed behind key revenue lines. The investment in the US commercial team last year is now providing a visible pipeline that is growing and compounding through existing relationships and rebookings. 

The launch of an open marketplace in Q2 2023 will reinforce revenue for our publishers with consistent fill and grow our geographical reach. 

As we enter H2 2023, our reseller network should begin to contribute materially which is a cost-efficient approach to monetising our non-core markets.

 

Q: What are the KPIs you will be tracking to evaluate commercial progress?

A: As a business, revenue and gross margin are key metrics that we track to evaluate the market growth, strength of our value proposition, moat and success of our commercial teams.  

However as we are establishing a new market, it is important to focus on lead indicators such as the growth of our publisher portfolio which enables supply and demand optimisation, the number of products being cross-sold and adopted by publishers and product feature launches to enhance our offer to our existing and prospective customers.  

 

Q: What are the key drivers that will transform the pathway to profitability?

A: The building blocks are in place to generate scalable and accretive revenue on a cost base which will be growing at a much lower rate from where we are today. As we continue to execute according to plan, operational leverage will drop through as we proliferate buying points to access our platform of premium inventory. 

We are making good progress in licensing our technology. Despite being early days, if adoption is faster than we anticipate it can change the profile of profitability.

 

Camila Franklin – COO

Camila joined Bidstack in 2022, adding more than two decades of gaming experience to the team. She was previously the COO at AdColony, one of the largest gaming monetisation platforms in the world. 

Throughout her career, Camila has led engineering, product, operations, and client-facing teams. She is also well-versed in managing complex cross-platform interactions and relations with clients, end-users, internal team members, and external partners.

 

Q: Can you share any details about Bidstack’s diversified revenue strategy?

A: In any industry diversification of revenue streams is an important consideration. This is why we are continuing to build out our reseller network and strengthen our agency partnerships as well as being pioneers in the open marketplace for in-game. 

I had a similar experience during my time in AdColony; we were there in the very early days of rewarded video so we need to replicate and expand the strategy into in-game to grow our share of gaming advertising budgets.

 

Q: What new opportunities will arise as in-game advertising expands beyond mobile platforms and into console?

A: The integration of in-game advertising on consoles presents a promising opportunity for the gaming industry. With integration expected in the next couple of years, it is only a matter of time before we see native in-game ads integrated into consoles. This presents a lucrative opportunity, as CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) should be comparable to that of Connected TV (CTV), ranging from $30-$60. 

Moreover, major AAA publishers are already making significant progress in advocating for intrinsic in-game ads and trialling the formats with their mobile IP.

 

Q: Is Bidstack’s technology well positioned to capitalise on the market’s growth?

A: The technology is well positioned for it, it’s been developed with the expansion in mind. Of course, we will need to continue to work with console developers and those partners who will allow us to integrate, but the technology is ready so we can go into it as soon as we have the permissions in place.

 

Lisa Hau – CSO

Lisa joined Bidstack in May 2020 with c.15 years of experience most recently at WPP a FTSE 100 where she led investor relations and at Jefferies where she was an equity analyst heading up coverage for European Media and Internet.

Lisa is Bidstack’s CSO and works closely with the management team on strategy, corporate and business development. She graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2006 and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

 

Q: What sets Bidstack apart from its competitors?

A: The quality of our team, product and portfolio. Over 2022 we achieved no less than 11 industry commendations and awards recognising our team’s innovative work. I am confident that in the year ahead we will continue to achieve, set and lead the standard for our peers.

Bidstack is a magnet for talent as evidenced by our recent executive hires in the US and our track record of bringing onboard global leaders in gaming from EA and Sony.  It is crucial to understand the key success factors of our developers and publishers to ensure that it is reflected in the products and features we launch. 

Attracting and retaining high-calibre talent is imperative for growth and further sets us apart from our peers in the space.

 

Q: How does Bidstack grow organically?

A: We pride ourselves on cultivating strong and genuine relationships with our developers and publishers. We are a strategic growth partner that creates value by increasing player engagement, generating incremental revenue and alleviating development timelines.  

Bidstack’s platform promotes achievement of commercial goals, enrichment of marketing mix with dynamic content and reporting tools for cohort analysis.  

This is a virtuous circle when combined with relentless innovation ensures cohesive and enduring relationships with our developers and publishers.  It has led to flourishing organic growth represented by cross pollination of services, exponential expansion of publisher portfolios and appetite from commercial partners to white-label our technology.

 

Q: What does the future hold for Bidstack?

A:  The structural growth evident in gaming and advertising provides a solid foundation for Bidstack to accelerate market share gains over the medium to long term.  The confluence of factors such as developers monetising their games and advertiser dollars shifting towards gaming as a mass media channel creates prime conditions for success. 

Bidstack is at an inflection point where the business has moved beyond proof of concept stage to accretive and scalable revenue growth. There are several key catalysts which will compound Bidstack’s valuation which are not currently captured.  These are as follows: 1) console approval will unlock valuable gaming inventory 2) acceleration of adoption and conversion of white-labelling 3) sports technology as a growth engine to reach next generation fans in video games.

We are proud to be working with some of the most recognisable names in the gaming industry and are seeing growing interest from commercial partners in all markets.  The quality of our pipeline is a testament to our build and partner approach. 

Bidstack’s sole focus is on enabling and enriching the game developer ecosystem with the mass adoption of our technology.