The gaming ecosystem in Spain already has its national 'Whatnot' or, at least, Martín Simón, Gerard Jané, Xavier Llordella and Pol Rodoreda aspire for their GameSquare platform to be so in the coming years.
The four founders of the startup are convinced that their project and the unstoppable process of digital transformation in which we are immersed will favor it because, as they insist: freakism "is in fashion".
"It is booming. We have seen it in traditional video game stores, that already half of their stock is more focused on collecting (purchases are more transversal, you buy both the game and the figure of the saga and the merchandising )," its founders explain to D+I.
From left to right: Martín Simón, Gerard Jané, Xavier Llordella and Pol Rodoreda.
They assure that the physical stores of this buyer profile are "crowded" in Barcelona -their hometown-, given that these fans also see them as social meeting points.
Entrepreneurs already have their international benchmark that they aspire to emulate, the marketplace Whatnot, a benchmark in the sector in the United States. "It is 100% focused on freakism/collecting and has raised $220M in the last year from some of the best funds in the world, such as A16Z or YCombinator," they qualify.
The Spanish startup started in 2018 hand in hand with -as they define themselves- "four lifelong gamers, although "it was Gerard who had the initial idea, since he was the one who bought and sold second-hand items the most, and it's also the one with the largest collection, especially of funkos".
Currently, they have just raised 100,000 euros from the hand of Startupxplore and their dream of responding to the accumulation of video games by gamers -one of the main challenges in the sector- is a little closer to being fulfilled thanks to digitization .
With a financing objective of 80,000 euros, it exceeded 100% of the round in less than 24 hours, reaching 125%, the maximum allowed by regulation, and creating waiting lists, they explain from the company.
GameSquare has conquered more than 50 investors, including Juan J. Mostazo, David Boronat, Sacha Fuentes (mentors of the SeedRocket accelerator), Rat Gasol (General Manager of Capital Cell) and Ramon Ollé.
In addition, they will also have the presence of Awin Capital, a fund specialized in investing in startups in the gaming sector.
"92% of gamers accumulate games, consoles and controls that they will never use again. This trend is accentuated by the current limitations of the market." There he hopes to hit GameSquare hard with his technology.
"Users can choose to sell their products in a physical store (such as GAME), where they will be able to sell them instantly, but will get a low market return (between 40 and 60% of their value), or sell them online, with more performance but they sacrifice a greater investment of time and their experience will not be optimal (Wallapop experience, chat and haggling)," they insist.
In this context, GameSquare proposes to digitize the collections and offer the best formula for both the seller and the buyer, similar to Whatnot in the US.
"We seek to unite instantaneity and economic performance, allowing users to digitize their collection, discover its value and earn instantly with it without friction," the founders emphasize.
In addition, "we saw that the user prioritizes the physical option over the online one (time and security over performance), so above all we have focused on the design of the application in order to optimize these factors".
The GameSquare marketplace aspires to gain the trust of the Spanish gaming sector to replace physical stores in the sale of second-hand video games and collections.
The company's value proposition is based on its technology, which allows users to register the demand for any product on the marketplace: users can upload their products and sell them directly to interested people, without having to chat, negotiate or move from home.
This system allows them to know in real time the current value of any product, facilitating instant transactions and creating a price alert system for buyers.
In this way, GameSquare brings together 2 increasingly connected sectors: gaming and collecting/freakishness. The first is still completely booming, with an annual growth of 18% in Spain and with prospects of being worth 400 billion dollars worldwide in 2026.
The second has shown great potential this 2021 and has Whatnot, specialized in Pokémon cards and Funko Pop figures, as one of the flagships. Precisely, the next vertical that GameSquare launches in November will be that of the Funko Pop, with more than three thousand units available.
"These are products that are very complementary to video games, since they are small figures of relevant characters from all kinds of sagas (they have licenses from Marvel, FOX, Warner, Disney, HBO, etc.) that have a very emotional value for people ", assert the founders.
"In addition, we have seen that there are many more stores specializing in this type of product than video games themselves, which helps us a lot in our strategy to capture supply," they add.
The startup sets a triple objective for 2022: expand its catalog and incorporate 50 more stores, improve the retention and recurrence of the platform and lay the foundations of a community.
"This last one is perhaps our biggest challenge, creating an entire ecosystem around the marketplace in which people share their passion for gaming and freakism. We believe that it is very important to lay the foundations of the startup well now in order to grow in a sustainable way." sustainable and efficient in the long term".
The GameSquare user profile is "people for whom we solve the problem of time and security. Users between 30 and 40 years old with greater purchasing power who flee from the negotiation dynamics of other platforms," they add.
