“2014 was a transformative year for Vermantia's business”

What can you say about the firm’s performance in 2014?

2014 was a transformative year for our business. We have developed and acquired various games and related IP and physical assets, in our gaming division with a view to rapidly accelerate the company’s growth profile. We have also invested heavily in the team, with particular focus on the interactive and social areas, as we broaden our focus of the business from a mainly retail environment to multi-channel distribution. 2014 may have been great for our business, but we are looking forward to 2015 beinga bit of a break-out year  as we build Vermantia’s brand and presence on a truly global scale.

What are the company’s expectations for 2015?

The key focus is to more widely distribute our core Virtual Sports and Instants products than we presently do. Our key market is currently Italy, where we will continue to expand our operator partner base, but 2015 will see us break into Latin America, Africa, Asia and mainland Europe with a large number of deals already in play. We have invested very heavily in the development of our Virtual Sports, Lottery Instants and social products, and are very excited to bring them to market in 2015. Following excellent feedback from Operators we firmly believe we have the strongest Virtual Sports offering in the market, and as such we fully expect to have already doubled our current deals, and expect to further this in 2015 with leading gaming operators. Moreover, we will have a strong presence at ICE 2015, and will present interactive gaming content at our booth (S3-110).

Can you reveal us some launches, plans or news for next year?

With our focus keenly on regulated/regulating markets, we will be launching our first interactive Virtual Sports Partner by the end of the first quarter of 2015 with many more scheduled after that. With Virtual Sports as our key offering, we will be launching 4 newly-developed games with the China Sports Lottery in 2015 and a range of Instants on the Irish Lottery website. Alongside those deals, we are starting to see huge interest from operators that currently work with Inspired Gaming to try and provide their players with the next generation of Virtuals. It is incredibly exciting to see the interest in our market-leading offering.

Recently, you have appointed new members to your sales team. What are their targets?

We have looked to strengthen the team in various areas, particularly in the Sales & Business Development and Content areas. As a show of intent, we have brought in Tony Plaskow and Richard Clarke to the Management team as Head of Sales and Business Development and Head of Games Operation, respectively. Both of them have huge experience in both land-based and interactive gaming, having variously held senior positions at IGT, Bally, Ladbrokes and Coral amongst other.

Vermantia is perfectly placed to use their skills to create the content and distribution network that will allow the company to thrive and become a global leader in both Virtuals and Lottery Instants provision. Joining Tony and Richard are Carlos Silva and Mohit Chaddah from Inspired and Coral, respectively, who add huge further experience and drive to the team.

What can you tell us about your agreement with Iforium? Has it met your expectations?

We are very excited to be working with Iforium who have shown, as a relatively new entrant into the market, the success that can be achieved with cutting-edge technology and a platform that has been built very much with the operator in mind. As the first interactive platform partner for Vermantia, we are looking to distribute our gaming content to Iforium’s Tier 1 land-based operators for use in both their retail and interactive operations. To date, it has been an absolute pleasure working with Phil and the Iforium team, as much of the industry looks to have closer relationships with ‘smaller’   technology partners who are slightly more flexible ,  who can increasingly give them , higher quality of software and services. We are hoping to be live with Iforium by the summer of 2015.