Hitmarker launched its second round of equity fundraising on Crowdcube today.
The gaming-focused job board was founded in 2017 and connects potential employers from the esports and video game industry with talent looking to work in those quickly expanding markets. The company’s new campaign is live on Crowdcube now, with the company looking to raise over £200,000 this time around.
“Hitmarker started out as a passion project for the esports community,” Managing Director of Hitmarker Richard Huggan said in a statement to Dot Esports. “My brother built the platform to give hiring companies a free place to post their jobs and candidates looking to work in the industry a home for the first time. Even though things have grown far beyond our expectations in the three years we’ve been working together in the business, that’s still our core mission today.”
Crowdcube is a grassroots investing platform designed to help entrepreneurs and small businesses find essential investors for their project. When users of Crowdcube invest their money into a business venture, they become a shareholder in that company. A number of large esports brands have raised funding from the site, including Fnatic, which raised over £1.3 million on a £100,000,000 evaluation.
According to the information provided by Hitmarker on their Crowdcube page, Hitmarker.com has now featured 67,000 job candidates and has posted jobs from 4,500 companies in 77 countries over the past three years. These metrics are more than double the numbers that Hitmarker reported in their Crowdcube campaign a year ago. The company is also reporting a a 67-percent increase in their year-to-year revenue, indicating that their revenue model has also continued to grow with the platform, even during the pandemic.
“COVID-19 looked like it was going to be disastrous for us and the wider industry back in March,” Huggan said. “[However], we decided to hold firm during the pandemic and keep all of our staff full-time, rather than putting them on furlough to save money. I think that really paid off because we were a constant presence throughout lockdown highlighting every paid remote job we could find, still providing the same level of service to the community day-in, day-out.”
According to the Hitmarker 2020 Crowdcube campaign video, the primary goal of this new round of funding is to expand the job board’s reach past the English language limitation by building a series of new localized platforms in markets like Brazil, China, and Japan, among others.
“Our first move is going to be to create platforms dedicated to the Brazilian and Spanish marketplaces, which are our two largest audiences where English isn’t the native language,” Huggan said. “Following the successful roll-out of these, we’re going to enter Asia for the first time. We’ll be launching platforms for Japan and China, before considering the next local market for us to move into.”
A portion of the money will also be allotted to expanding the developer team and hiring a Business Development Specialist, who will help develop new relationships and partnerships with the gaming industry.
“[We managed to land] some fantastic partners, including University of California Irvine, NASEF, and the 1000 Dreams Funs,” Huggans said in his statement. “Business development falls entirely on my shoulders at the moment, so I’m certain that hiring a specialist who can be 100% focused on the sales side of the business will enhance our existing partnerships while bringing in plenty of new ones. It could be a game-changer.”
Hitmarker used the Crowdcube platform for their first equity round in November 2019, raising more than £166,000 from 380 investors on an £80,000 goal. The company is hoping to raise significantly more than that in 2020, with their starting goal being £200,000 this time around. Interested investors can find more information on their Crowdcube page.
