Panel: Do VC's Struggle When Startups Struggle in 2024

[Music] um thanks for coming um so it's the first um first hour today so we basically came from the party like literally 1 hour ago um thanks guys for joining uh I I will host this this um the speech with you uh guys and we have quite diverse uh Founders and partners here so um it would be good to to start maybe with some introduction and um because these guys are VC funds and well I'm on the other side of the spectrum so I'm the the guy who's usually seeking for for ons um let's

maybe start with a very very brief introduction is mat can you can you just go with it uh because you are from the Turkish fund so uh and you are in in which space it's mobile right uh so basically my name is Smith I'm the general partner of ludus wies so we are based in Turkish but we don't call ourselves as a Turkish funders because we have a lot of like outside investment as that like metor uh so basically we have two funds one of them we funded early 2021 which is approximately $30 million we raised recently this year as well which is going to be additional 20 to $30 million we'll see about it we did our first closing it's going good we'll see about it and our background including me and my other partners are from mobile especially at Tech space so that's why our core focus is mobile gaming so until now we deployed 8% of our total Capital into Mobile gaming but again we still quite excited about PC console attech platform whatever you call it uh we are a generalist in terms of gaming vertical but we'll see sure um

Greg you are on the complete other side you are more PC right yeah um can you introduce yourself sure so my background in VC investment goes back till 2010 uh I'm running a VC that's investing mostly into premium games so focusing on PCS consoles and similar stuff so going very deep focusing on one industry and you know trying to make it in one is it mostly PC or a little bit of of mobile as well uh till now only PCS consoles and so on no mobile Investments yet okay um thas from smoke VC polish and US fund right yeah we are part part partially polish partially American fund because we are the part of the like a network of funds of brag Brothers there are like two guys uh who are like in the VC like over 15 years now um and um we have like a bit different approach we do not like Focus fully on The Game Dev we also

invest in a software I say game is like get 20% of our portfolio and yeah we we are we based in woro in Poland but we invest in the entire Eastern Europe I would say and in terms of stages it's like a prit SE stages um cool I'm Pavo and I have a company Mobile gaming company uh called mcore and um we are VC funded so um two of the guys here um isman and and th much invested in in my company a few years ago and um yeah a lot of things have changed since then I mean it was it was quite easy like two three years ago you you maybe remember um there was a lot of money on the market right there were were a lot of Investments um right now it changed even if we have way more cool content um we let go a lot of good people in industry and a lot of Studios were closed um can we start with a very very basic question um about the state of the well basically Market maybe is

let's roll with it I think it would be good to focus on on on on mobile y for sure because we talked a lot sorry just one thing um eat is very much into ad based games right and and they have um a lot of cool incentives in in Turkey yeah so it would be good to hear a bit about about uh about the incentives as well as about the yeah for sure so let me start with stateof the mobile I think that's a very interesting topic so because uh when you look 2020 or before that mobile was driving a lot and everybody says that whether it is doomed or not um so I don't think what's happening in Mobile space is most related to about microeconomics I think it's it's more because of micr TR which is mostly driven by Apple and privacy updates so if I look why mobile companies are struggling a lot is mostly because what's happening with the idfa and targeting in UA uh so in my opinion if that's stuff didn't happen probably we

will see still a growing and emerging mobile market um set so we are very optimistic about 20124 and then future because obvious see a lot of big players are actually adapted it probably all of you guys knows applen is killing it at the moment and adelite networks try to find other ways to cope with it um so we're not again as pessimistic as like a couple of years ago we see a good Trend growing emerging new genres I mean we all know like LTV is more important than ever which you need to focus on liveops and other like a things to to make your game long-term sustainable but again in nutshell I can say maybe in next questions we can go into more in depth uh but in overall I mean I'm more positive especially in Mobile turkey has a unique space Not only because of of of incentives but also in the background so if you look for the last couple of years we have more than we have five $100 million plus m&a activities happened from Zinga and other players and and

again we have a very good understanding about mobile ecosystem because of our unicorns because of our experts in the field and also yeah our government is is like a really really incentivizing to to do gaming in Turkey because I think it's one of the flagships for Turkish economy to grow uh so yeah I'm again like in 2024 we super positive about Outlook and we are super positive about especially turkey for for a Turkish may I ask more uh what's the current like like um situation or condition of the Turkish market oh you know most of the south from from Poland's point of view I mean like every single country has different Dynamics right for example like if you look to Polish market it has a very good PC in the IND the community if you look to Turkish we are really good at casual we are trying to diversify just like Polish market like there's a lot of incentive for Mo to grow Mobile in Polish so we are doing the same thing for PC in Turkey for example but if if you look the core competency our core competency

is mostly on on casual gaming in Turkey what I can say we have a really good companies uh like dream Peak gr or like a recently emerged companies like Spike we have a company called paxi which is amazing uh so in in nutshell what I can say is we are really good at uh like uh first developing in casual games and scaling it not because of again incentives because of the expertise coming from unicorns like a bottle for effect so that's what I can I can say as as a over yeah um so so by by the way um maybe we can extend the question I know we will talk a moment longer um what trends do you see if I would start right now A mobile gaming company so what what should I do I mean I shouldn't listen to you I should just run the company figure it out on myself but yeah so first uh be resilient like besides everything right you have to be really rock solid psychology because it's really hard at the moment so what you can do so I mean so what we are saying thing is when

there is a happen when there's a trend is Trend it's too late for you to do it so you need to for see before something getting a trend so right now like in a overall perspective I would say get away from hyper casual and and Hyper casual publishing it's it's like too saturated just focus on Innovative projects and focus on two things scalability and marketability which means that your product needs to Market marketable and scale really easy and if you look that perspective I mean mostly it hits like casual or casualized mour strategy whatever you can do do it so in my point of view first look at your core competency right what you what as a studio you can do so be realistic about your objectives because again fundraising is hard finding money is hard finding a publisher is hard look at your resources what you can develop and just try to be a smart what you can do about it in terms of Trends I can say two major things one of them is K factors is most important than ever which means that we

don't we didn't have Community Focus for the for for the last 5 years but if you look having a strong Community increase organic traffic K Factor like a driving more organic users per acquired users is really important that's the one thing whatever you can do it just try to have some good organic uplift whether you're doing racing simulations casual that kind of stuff and second one is focus on on long-term retention without Hing your C without harming your CPI which means that you need to focus on live Ops events calendars whatever you call it but uh it's like a it's like a 7day payback games shortterm it's it's it's ended right now sure I I I mean in I'm in the business so I understand that we yeah we invest very much into life Ops that's that's the biggest thing uh Greg so so one more time the the question to you because you are on the again on the the second side of of gaming you are with the PC and consoles um can you can you tell us something about the condition I mean we saw so many companies been closed with so great

content not true about Poland but in the world it was a disaster well interesting fact is that 2023 was the best year for players for years uh but not necessary for the studios so people making the games were actually struggling in 2023 uh the whole Market when it comes to the player base is kind of stable in PC and console you didn't have like wave from covid so you didn't have like sudden increase in players and St sudden drop but uh 2023 was the year that so many games were released and big games were released at at the same time so players had a lot of choice what to play and unfortunately a lot of companies that fundraised in uh covid they actually ran out of cash at that point uh not all of them even managed to release the product that they were working on so we had a lot of Early

Access fails unfortunately so what that's the case why lots of players started to this like early access at at this point so unfortunately we're going to see more and more closures happening and Only the Strong will can I ask something what happened to the products were they acquired or just vanished or what now they're just slowly dying okay um so if I would start a gaming company that makes PC games or console games what what trends should I look at so there's not like you need to go in the particular gener you know the gener is uh something that people choose but that's not something that you should bu build your company upon actually the most resilient companies the companies that succeed they have the vision and they work on a game and improve it in with every iteration uh super giant games everyone knows Hadas but they work on the similar games and and hes is the

third game in very similar Bal gate that's a Divinity original Scene Three for example you know that's what way the game was good it was not a a sudden idea it was just a hard work that they managed to convert into a proper game any great IP that you would recommend right now that that you know just just went above any expectation when it comes IP it it can be double- edged sword so it's not necessary that you have to follow one you can create one but that's not something that uh is going to help bad game to survive you need to actually have a game play first sure to uh you are doing a lot of stuff that is game related not really just games uh any any condition of this Market this additional stuff to gaming yeah actually we s a lot of stuff uh with like element of AI a lot of

startups coming to us and U speeching like you know a lot of different software which can like improve the the development process so for example uh the AI generating you know the Landscapes on or yesterday I talked to one funer here at this event that uh is doing like a generative AI for uh for like animation of of your character so something like alternative for the uh for the current motion capture technology so I think like for there will be like a lot of different uh new products on this Market in a coming years which can somehow revolutionize the the development process and I think there is like a a lot of chances for this Market um and maybe you know in the last years we had a constant like a grow of the cost cost of the production but um I think the AI can somehow revolutionalize it and decrease the production process

in the companies because you know uh if you have those like automation tools you can actually make much more uh with like a smaller resources right so for sure we see those Trends uh especially of course the AI is like a buz word so we have to be very cautious what we pick how we analyze those those projects uh there will be probably like a few few winners and a lot of losers there so it's like a hard Market uh and also hard to predict uh but yeah for sure we see there like a our opportunity and as I said we invest mostly in a software uh like very broadly so I think this is actually a like a space where we plan to invest more than in a pure like a software game game developers right uh so yeah sure um if it's uh official obviously are you just talking about and thinking about AI or do you invest in a AI have you invested in any company that is doing

anything AI related yeah you know now almost like everyone put something like you know AI to his deck so we can say yes of course uh but you know in some projects this AI is just the password as I said um but yeah like the use of like llms in different software products the machine learning this is what what we are looking at I think like you know from from the software perspective we like like this space of like a death tools uh a lot so so yeah we are investing here so uh is maybe I can ask you um you you know the the again the Art Space very well they are using AI right a lot and and have you talked with the guys so we are taking a video recording so okay I would say no okay cool um yeah yeah let's just skip the question um so is it high risk inves in games still so so I mean like uh if

there's a money on the table everything is highrisk at at at some certain point right but I would say like Ste gaming one of the safe Hardward because like if you look to numbers we are still have 3.3 billion gamers in the worldwide so somebody still plays games and if you like the overall sentiment gaming ecosystem is still growing I mean sometimes PC grows sometimes mobile grows but it's growing and we are consuming and one thing that I like is if you look to entertainment per cost hour there's a lot of research you can find from internet like it's the cheapest entertainment type gaming is the cheapest very cheap way cheaper than to go team Park Cinema whatever you call it and it's accessible so in my point of view like a humans still need some some degree of entertainment and I I believe like it's risky but like it's it's not that risky compared to other veral just look at what happen in other works like fintech healthc care all of them are struggles but I mean in gaming there a

lot of lot of things has a has a drives us a very positive sentiment so I believe like it's risky but it's not that risky if you if you knew how you're going to invest so if you ask me of course if you're going to write $5 million check for a Indie Studio who Target to sell 500,000 copies it's insane right you're not you're not you're not getting your money back let's talk about money in a moment or or let's say that if you write a check from from a studio like I say $2 million for a studio who wants to disrupt triaa RPG market right it's not going to be happening for 2 million dollars but again if you find a smarts you can reduce your risks a lot and that's why in gaming there's a lot of gaming VCS like I think it is one of the most specialized investment arms in the in the in the whole investment world so yeah okay so uh what would you invest in right now so like it depends right it depends on the opport opportunity um

like our expertise in Mobile so we can write checks more uh more more easily on on the mobile site but what we are seeking is first uh of course good Founders right founder is always key uh to to mobile because you can do a lot of research lot of market analysis but you never know right whether your game is going to sell or not or or in Mobile what what is the CPI going to be you you can guess but I mean it's like a f f coin so co-founder um of course the market and genre what you want to do and like the most important thing is commercial terms like it's more important than ever because in 2020 everybody including us writing a like a very insane valuations I mean we saw 20 million preed I mean like how you going to get a reasonable return from a $20 million um preced it should be like a unicorn or Dorn I'm I'm not sure uh but yeah like commercial terms are are more important than and than ever and maybe

Greg can guide me but that's the one thing that we are struggling a lot for PC how we can drive like a reasonable outcome from PC in Mobile it's a little bit easy but PC like it's it's it's harder than ever in my point of view but I'm I'm super curious probably you will ask the same question to Greg later but Greg go on come on we want to know all right so the situation in PC is kind of interesting because you had a lot of companies being funded you know during the covid times but the thing is that the the companies are not being funded at the moment so in a year or two you're not going to see that many games that are being produced so whoever is able to produce the game at the moment is actually having an additional Advantage so that's interesting fact that uh now you're going to have less competition than you used to have yeah so that makes you more probable to succeed of course it's always down to the team that you're going to select because you can have people with different experience with

different uh background but if they deliver in their own company that's uh completely different thing so you have to actually kind of uh risk and bet if they'll be able to transform you know from for example even if they work for a big company and then some and then uh they want to go on their own studio if they will be able to deliver what they promised what they planned if they're able to actually to set up the uh the proper production process and deliver the game on time and quality that uh they had idea uh upon uh and a lot of Studios they really want to skip the pre-production part because it's hardly fundable so everyone wants just to go into production and you know make an asset and okay you know we're going to show you like the Prototype or the demo but they skip like the pot on the paper and that's can be very very heartful so it's going to be good time for PC Studios who are able to deliver games

because there will be and time frame um I believe two or three years because you cannot like hasten the the development of the game you know like you canot have like nine woman born child in one month sure so uh when you look at an investment and you would like to go in into it uh would it be would you consider a company that you see that they don't have really an interesting product that but they have a plan for staying alive for the next 3 years because then you would have like a you know insurance that they release the game like in a in the perfect moment well the very important fact is to see if the studio is betting everything on a single production and because we had like at Le in Poland you know we had a couple of attempts that all the bets were set upon a single project and the project fails they studio is that so um probably that's the time for Studios that are going to go

for a smaller projects that are more manageable and are can be delivered by smaller teams because the successes if you judge them by number of copies sold uh were delivered in the last years by smaller teams so in Poland you know you had monolos which was a single death with some Out Source but timberborn you had Against The Storm rft breaker these were the teams of less than 10 people that delivered and the teams that were operating on the bigger budget and bigger teams for some reason they didn't and you can actually have to act upon data like okay you know the the reasons were different in every single case but not the single uh budget of this sort worked smaller budgets works so you have to upon that so you would definitely consider like triple I products over anything else right or well no one knows what the triple I is yeah

you know like like a very good product made by a very small team yeah okay that that that's actually a direction you know like a smaller game smaller teams that are able to work with each other and deliver on time deliver on the quality and iterate uh much faster proof to be able to deliver better games than even like the bigger teams do I feel you want to tell us something about investing and high risk right now yeah have actually a bit different point of view this like a risk related uh game of Investments uh because in a software there it's like a you have a funders who are solving like some kind of like real problem Market problem and they are creating solution to solve it so uh it's like a different situation where if you deliver such solution um your customers uh are very willing to pay for it but in Game Dev you're actually selling the entertainment and of course you can say

that this is a problem how you how to spend your free time right but you have like a lot of Alternatives here okay ismat said that the Game Dev is like a super big and it's still growing Market uh over three billion players like around the world um yeah but uh I think that um it's it's also like getting more and more competitive in terms of like I look at the statistics from Ste from the last year U only on Steam platform there was like 15,000 new games released so this is like a 40 games uh per day of course most of them are like a very small games uh made by one one person probably but uh also success rate uh uh Define as a you know steam published some data that only 500 games from out of from out of those uh 50,000 uh reach the gross sales like3 million so we can consider them like a kind of

successful but probably not for all of them because uh most of the games has a bigger budgets uh so it shows that like two 3% of the games listed on Steam are successful so I think it's getting more and more competitive uh uh so this is at least for me like a high highrisk Investments and we are like very selective uh there uh when investing on this Market okay uh you basically scratched on on one of the next question is about basically the turnoff for you guys uh can you can you just elaborate on that yeah of course um yeah in game that also a bit different than in software because um you don't have that much like a huge uh exits here actually like exits like above like billion dollars are very rare in this in this uh in this uh segment and in a like a traditional VC model um it work like that uh you actually have

like a high very high expectations about the returns uh because especially when you invest like very early stage as as we are um like those Investments are super super risky and uh you know most of our portfolio will bankrupt after like a few years of our investment so uh each of the company we invest in uh has to have a chance to return our fund so uh it usually means that those businesses have to have you know the potential to be really huge and actually in Game Dev it's kind of hard to to achieve it uh so yeah that is how I see it in game def actually in software it's much easier because you know the the scaling is different uh yeah and the exit are usually bigger sure um Greg any any turnoff uh for you to to invest in a company besides cash obviously that's that's the second part uh I would say lack of research is one of the ter that you know happening is to me quite

often so if you don't know who are you making the game for that's one another thing if you're budgeting for a game that needs to sell in a millions and not a lot of games in this category sold in this volume that's another one because you cannot bet on success you know that's kind of a risk in a risky business that's just too much you know you can bet what is average and there's a lot of data to support how many copies of the game you can sell that's one of the few industries that actually has the access to this amount of data that you can uh base your assumptions upon uh but uh saying that the good game is going to defend itself it's not working you know you actually need to know who you're making a game for for example jenz is doing completely different preferences in uh games than what the Millennials used to used to do so going for cooperation games uh for all sort of

interaction that was not there when Millennials used to play you know they prefer like single player games but now it's completely different so if someone doesn't know who they're making the game for and and if they're betting that they have to sell like a significant number of copies and only the hits in that category uh were able to do that that's a turn off for me oh man I think in Mobile it's quite harder right because we are talking about millions of downloads so there are completely different turnouts right yeah like a lot of but I mean like um we are a preced and Seed stage VC right so most of the companies that we invest uh doesn't have a product yet so most of the turnoff we have is mostly related with the fonders itself because we believe in pivoting so even your first game was not a hit you can always pivot if the fer is too good so since we started to operate we actually went through more than 4,000

accounts 4,000 companies and personally I I look at least 75% of it so when you do a call uh from the eyes of the fers you would understand whether they have enough skill set and and resilience right for example you guys so I just uh describe medor as a cat with more lives so you guys are that much resilient you you simply don't die how much do you have left we'll see about it right but it's still still not not nine yet so again you you will understand how resilient in the founders because I think being a CEO of a gaming startup is one of the worst thing that you can do in your life like it's stressful like it's like a stretch deadlines you work a lot and outcome is so small uh so that's why first thing that we look at it is whether you're resilient right you have everything to do so and second like depending what you want to do we always look whether there is some certain skill sets requiring for example in my point

of view if you don't have a CTO it's no go for us so you have to have a CTO and you have to have some sort of like a background what genre you want to do for example if you work a huge Casino many many years and you've come to me hey I'm gonna I'm going to do a vert puzzle I would definitely say no because it's completely difficult or vice versa uh but again most of the red flex and turnoff we have most related with the fonders but of course there are some some research mistakes or or market analysis for example if you say I'm going to do Match Tree I just need $500,000 still it's a no of course um good um I would like to to shift a little bit and go into into a bit more grimier questions uh so guys I know you are on ndas and all of that so so if you don't want to answer just just skip it so it's it's all right um so um you know because last year not many people and this year as well not many companies without funding at all it's like like crazy so people are struggling

they don't get the money they have very good talent they usually have um pretty cool companies um on paper because they got people from big companies uh they have great technical uh knowledge they they done their research and they don't get funding so uh it's very hard to start a product right um so the question is um because usually Founders don't think about it um how is it on your side what's it or is it still um very hard to to get your funds together okay ISAT you can start because I know you just finished your fund so it will be way easier so it's the same whether you're a venture capital or startup right if you have a competitive advantage and if you have a USB what you done you can always achieve right for example we have a USB positioning in our market and we have a special expertise on an attech and mobile so we used it leveraged it of course it was hard but you we still

managed to raise so I think it's more related and more more combined whether you're actually has some Advantage compared to your competitors or if there's an opportunity to do so so it's hard but what is the advantage is it is it the studios that talk with you do you go with them to to the so for example we have a unique positioning in our Market we are one of the biggest guys and like we have our first one which is mostly was our money so we deployed a approximately $60 million from from our our own cap money from as partners so it show it showed a a confidence for external investors hey these guys put that amount of money their own guys so they have to know know something uh but again in in in nutshell uh we have a geop positioning expertise positioning and it work it worked for us well but I I don't I won't say it's it's not easy uh I won't say it's not uh hard it was hard but you know like uh it's how life it is right there's always additional challenge you need to cope with it and and my always I recommend you to do this

don't blame others just look yourselves because let's say that you tried to fundraise and you didn't and you cannot say that ah investors doesn't understand me so first look why they rejected me or it's the same for Venture Capital right if I go to LP investor and and I couldn't get money from them I should ask myself why didn't they invest me whether my metrix was bad whether there's a a mistaken opportunity so it's the same like whatever you do you think so that's that's that's that's my take on it all right um I I guess there are Cycles right when LPS are more interested into into investing in you as well are they uh are they like aligned with the with the cycles of investing in products like I mean overall in the in the in genres like you know there was much free and a lot of people threw in money into into that genas right um is it the same on LP site yeah like there's Cycles in everywhere right for example you mentioned there were no like let's say that low activity last year the

reason of the low activity not because we don't have money or investors doesn't have one because there's opportunity window we wait it I me because the valuations going to be go down and and many companies some level of degree uh will have to take less competitive deals so that's why everybody waits because I know a lot of VCS have millions of millions dollars in their bank account so they waited because they will have more favorable conditions in 2024 and and which is the case that's why everybody is is deploying a lot of cash at the moment because the valuations are at least half compared to years so there are Cycles uh I'm mean LP perspective they I don't think they have like product mindset they're more look at like outcome perspective so right now the lp mindset is I'm getting an irr from a bank from against US dollar 8 to 10% so it's a secure return whether you can give me 25 to 30% irr per year as a venture capital so that's the question they they would ask but the product size is is more on VC so I would say we need to look at

it Greg may I ask you how how was it last year and how was the the the the struggle or no struggle with getting LPS on board well uh everything as as was already said is in Cycles so you know there are Cycles where uh particular Industries are attracting a lot of attention and a lot of capital uh of course you know like it's the same with with game def uh uh is it changing well LPS are usually bit more statistically professional investors than you know the most of the people investing directly so uh it's not affected in a such an extent as uh General Investments we seen like a wave of let's say what I call stupid Capital you know that was going into the industry in the the covid times so people who had never invested before you know throwing the money at the companies that should never have been established

uh and we seen them dying at the moment you know in a very rapid uh way so uh it's not changing that much for VC so they're much more stable way of uh Distributing Capital there's much harder way to approach people to directly invest in your company uh but uh it's slightly changing you know we've seen the bad times and you know bad times go after good times and the other way around so we're going to probably see that changing the sentiment changing in a few years again sure um you guys closed your f as well last year right yeah we are kind of lucky because we closed it like actually end of 2022 so right before you know all this like inflation started you are rolling with it right right now with the new fund yeah we are actively investing yes um so I think you know when you have like a tough environment uh economic environment it's is actually you know

normal that the the capital flow from like a very uh risky asset and actually VC is one of the risk riskiest assets on on the market to the more safest you know alternative because you know we have like a higher interest rate so the alternative assets also give you like pretty good returns so this is also like about the economic Cycles right uh but yeah let me like take it from like a perspective of our region this is also uh related with with like a maturity of our Market because in Eastern Europe we are still like relatively young VC market and uh it is mostly financed by the public Capital so for example in Poland uh at the beginning of the last year actually most of the VCS local VCS actually uh spend all their all their money and they they're actually waiting for like you know another funding from the EU and it was a bit postponed because all those like a political stuff uh so for example in the 2022 we we had

like around 100 VCS actively investing in Poland in the last in the end of the last year there was like maybe 20 of them so much less money on the market uh so for those who actually raised the fund it was uh good time for investing and we were actually Lucky in the last year we made like over 10 Investments uh because the competition was like lower in our region in general uh but I think end of this year uh the money will like start flowing again from the European Union so we should see actually rebound of the of the VC Market in our region uh the new funds will be starting starting so um yeah I think the next year will be like much more positive from that perspective so it will change but there is a lot of Hope right yeah I think yeah it will change for for better okay that's cool um one thing it's it's a little bit different question because usually um I will tell you very briefly about us so when we uh

fundraised a few years ago and we had our products you know we we sold them to to some companies whatever uh everything was fine but the question is and I never thought about this uh until recently actually what happens do you guys kind of struggle if we struggle I mean okay you invested in US everything is fine we are happy then like two years pass and uh nothing happens the product is not ready or whatever um is my what happens with the LPs they they they read newspapers or websites and they come to you and say dude there was a nice company but or not so um basically we are a very transparent wec so we know we simply report what are the good things and what are the bad things it depends on your LP I mean in second fund we have more institutions in first one it's more like a like a high Network individual uh I would say it's not easy because it's always easy to to

report achievement but it's really hard to like I say um so the one thing is transparency right if you say okay like we up but we up because of this and this is the lessons we get from it's more manageable but if there's like a very idiotic mistake happened it's really hard to tell because nobody wants to see failure especially in investor point of view uh I mean I know we see sometimes uh acting you hard but believe me our LPS are acting us hard either so it's like a mutual bond your companies understand that they they know that you know you invested but you uh like I don't think like everybody like everybody puts their priority first right and it's nature of the business so if you say something harsh for them sometimes they get personal but it is life it is like a Commerce it is like a business so I mean but but in nutshell I cannot get into details but uh it's it's not easy right cope with LPS like uh that's that's one thing that I can say

one question how much time of your week it takes to talk with your I mean GPS like uh let's say that at least 30% goes to LPS and then managing LPS and Reporting them especially if you're if you have an anchor investor I don't know their mix but we have some two anchor investors and they ask of course they ask questions I can just imagine the week you know you you you have the 30% of talking with them and you go on a with a company and it's fun again that's why no hangovers for GPS right you have to always be available GRE you had a lot of talks with your LPS uh well it depends you know I believe we have two categories you know people who want to be involved in a way and people who just want to be like investors you know like passive ones uh the thing is you know if you're completely honest and transparent when you fundraise so you know if the people are prepared that some company are going to fail because that's what the fund is

for it's going to diversify what you invest in and you actually need to be on top of that with even a single investment so not all of them are going to be successful that's the very point if there was no risk there would be no reward so we actually needed to be transparent with them and prepare them from the very start that some of the companies will fail even if you do all the things properly if you to assess them you know uh in a proper way you know and the data is behind it because sometimes it just fails because of a human factor so lpce needs to be prepared that there will be bad news and if they're aware from the very beginning of that it's much easier to talk with them in the future if something fails sure you want to add something yeah I think it's the same in our case actually most of our LPS are like a high netw worth individuals and like there's like a very D diverse group of the mostly

entrepreneurs so they actually understand how the market works and that now it's like a you know tougher time but probably um yeah we actually consider that current current uh year and then the year before it's pretty good for making like a new Investments because we will be actually exiting like you know in the next six seven years so uh the environment should change uh but yeah we we are also like very transparent with our LPS we are in a like a almost daily contact we have like a WhatsApp group they can ask us a question we also consult with them like a lot of stuff uh when we for example assess a new company for investment so they knew what's going on in our fund and they understand I would say cool um we are running out of time unfortunately but I have one one one last question because um we in um in mobile we are all about kpis so um every year it changes what is the new sexy kpi like last year was obviously LTV everybody was looking at at well at the value of of users and

like the year before it was retention and so on so it changed uh obviously it depends with who you talk but but uh generally it was like that um so is I I I guess I know your answer but but it would be good to hear you just very briefly what is the new sexy kpi you know when you when when people talk with you yeah three things first definitely Ross second one is maximum margin you can drive a game whether your Ross could be the at maximum 150 200 300 and third one is K Factor what's the percentage of organic in your in your overall mix okay okay and on PC do you measure that besides u i mean stuff like like retention something like that because people pay a front uh well to be honest the only kPa that matters is numbers of copies sold so but they don't know like 3 years before launch yeah so you know like wish list were kind of a thing you know in the past but the question was always you know how

much of this is really worth it you know how much you can convert into actual purchases so there's not like a solid kpi you can uh judge you know very early on unfortunately you know you can have Early Access you can have sales there you can assess the size of the community activities and so on but until you're actually releasing the game and you know doing the check this that's actually you know something that PCS are bit slower upon uh in Mobile you know you can do the soft launches you know and measure a lot of stuff over there but on PCS until you actually release the game either like full one or at least in Early Access uh you don't have like the final check you can sure see how many people are being attracted how many people are following you know how the wish list is being built upon but until you start selling you know everything it's just you you know writing in a sent sure and

you are looking when you look at at like game related stuff yeah of course um is it the software it's more like you know the initial traction uh it's hard to like say one specific kpi when inv in like mobile games it's what ismat mentioned but for us like the most important I would say kpi is like a human factor so we inv like very early stage so the you know the understanding the people like feeling the flow between the funders uh actually believe that those are the the best people uh which can like you know build the the given company in this specific space it's the most important for us and it will be hear that a lot that that that that you guys invest in good companies anyway thank you very much and uh I learned a lot actually I think it's very interesting to hear yours perspective you know not just asking you for money or whatever but just hear that that you know you have a lot of work uh to do to get us some cash thank you