Interview with CEO of Nitro - Many triggers

Investornytt have meet CEO of one of the most exciting and up and coming gaming development companies in Scandinavia. Jussi Tahinen is VP/CEO and co-founder of Nitro. We have asked him some questions.

Hello Jussi! How are you? Can you tell a bit about what you as CEO/VP are doing these days?

-I’m doing well, thank you! 2021 was a good year for Nitro Games. We significantly grew our revenue, diversified and broaden our game portfolio while we invested heavily into our games to be launched in 2022. This gives us a good position to continue forward to 2022 with several exciting events on our roadmap.

Now in the spring, we just recently signed our biggest order value to date in January and have ongoing soft launches with our games. This means that we’re busy in a very positive way, as we are both preparing game releases and starting new projects at the same time.

Can you tell the readers how Nitro now gets revenue.

-We essentially get revenue in two ways; B2B revenue from business partners as a result of us sharing our services to them, and B2C revenue from our games through app stores and distribution partners as a result of consumers spending in our games.

The majority of our revenue in 2021 was B2B revenue from the various deals we announced throughout the year. With our game portfolio, we focused on the development of new games that we are seeking to launch this year.

How is the outlook now? If you see one year ahead.

-Moving forward, we are seeking growth with both our games portfolio and with our B2B service business we provide for our partners. Our focus points this year are.

1) Game Launches and

2) B2B Projects.

The goal with the game launches is to have a successful game on the market and see growth for Nitro as a result. So in 1 year from now, I expect us to have done several soft launches from our game portfolio and of course we want to see us succeeding with those to the actual global launch. We don’t expect everything we do to succeed, as this is a very hit driven business. But that’s why we have a portfolio strategy with several shots on goal; to be able to identify and focus on the winners. Regarding the B2B Projects in our Service Business, I expect us to continue delivering great quality for our partners, and as a result continue in improving our own performance as well, step by step incremental improvements like we’ve done earlier.

So overall, in one years time, our goal is to have achieved a lot with our roadmap this year, both with the game launches and with our B2B service business. And goes without saying, our intention is to deliver shareholder value as a result.

How is the economy in the company?

-2021 was a good year for us. We progressed to the right direction and we saw our finances improve notably quarter by quarter. Q4 was strong for us, and as a result we have succeeded in maintaining our strong cash position. So overall, we are in a good position to go forward with our roadmap in 2022.

Can you explain the deal with snapchat ?

-We have a total of 4 game deals with Snap Inc., which is the company that owns Snapchat. The terms and conditions are confidential, so we can’t go into details there, but the idea is that we develop the games in collaboration with Snap and after the games have been released, Nitro Games shall receive a significant revenue share. The first game is already on soft launch on the Snapchat platform, which means that it’s available for selected limited audiences for measurement and finalization before the actual launch. We expect the remaining 3 games to be soft launched this year as well.

Whats your ambitions for the company? How big can it be?

-Our vision is to become a household name in the category of shooter and action games on mobile. We are seeing the shooter category growing on mobile and expect that to continue moving forward as well. Mobile games are a very hit driven business, but at the same time very scalable when you hit the success. This is due to the data driven nature of free-to-play mobile gaming, that helps game developers and publishers to continuously optimize and improve their game and marketing (user acquisition) funnels based on the data.

As a result, some of the best mobile games in this industry have generated more than a million dollars in revenue on a day. So basically, a successful mobile games company can grow very big once it has a successful game it can operate for several years.

Nerf battegame look quite good – how many downloads you have? And how do you get revenue for this.

-NERF: Battle Arena is currently in soft launch in selected countries. We have a global exclusive license for the NERF brand by Hasbro, and can use their trademarks and blaster designs in our game. This brand is a great match for Nitro and for a mobile game, as it’s one of the so called «billion dollar brands» known globally, and big especially in US which is our main market. Also, due to the non-violent nature of the NERF blasters it allowed us to build a mobile shooter style game that is suitable for all ages. The game is free to play. Players can enjoy the game for free or purchase digital In-App-Purchases that allows them to enhance the gameplay experience with digital content. We are very excited about this game and look forward to expanding it to larger audiences this year. We have not disclosed any numbers for the game yet.

Will we see global release of Nerf and Lootland before summer?

-We have not communicated any exact launch dates in advance. This is due to the data driven nature of the game launch process, and the fact that we do not wish our competition to discover anything specific about our future plans. That said, we are currently in soft launch with NERF: Battle Arena and in technical testing phase with Lootland, and we are excited about the roadmap moving forward this year.

Are they searching for new projects after Lootland And Nerf is done?

-We have a new unannounced game project in production now, and we continue to be active with our early game funnel to ensure we have new games for our portfolio moving forward as well.

Parallel to this, we are continuing being active in business development, where we’re seeking new opportunities for Nitro with our B2B partners.

Are they willing to go under the hood of Egmont that own more than 50% of the shares if oppurtunity is given or do they see themselves standing on their own feets?

-Egmont Holding represents the ownership of Nordisk Games. Naturally, I can’t comment on behalf of other shareholders. However, we have been very happy with the strong support we’ve received from Nordisk Games. They agree with our vision and have allowed us to focus on our long-term strategy. This has also helped us to deliver progress short-term as well, which is obviously very positive. Overall, we are very happy with where we stand right now.

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Espen Teigland

Espen Teigland er en av Norges mest profilerte investorer. Espen har jobbet med økonomi og etterretning i mange år i offentlig sektor. Espen har holdt foredrag om etterretning i finans og har et stort nettverk innen næringslivet i Skandinavia. Espen jobbet i politiet i 10 år inntil han nylig overtok som daglig leder i Investornytt.

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