Drake’s latest collaboration isn’t with Kanye or Kendrick, it’s with Marissa Mayer.

The rap superstar has joined a bevy of Silicon Valley investors, including Strauss Zelnick, Comcast, Macro Ventures, Canaan, RRE, Courtside and Marissa Mayer, to fund Players’ Lounge, an esports startup looking to pit gamers against each other in their favorite titles with some friendly wagers on the line.

The startup has just announced that it closed $3 million in funding.

The company, which has been around for five years, got its start as an esports startup looking to organize real-life matches at bars in New York City to play FIFA. That’s obviously not the most scalable business of all time, but last year after joining Y Combinator, the company really dove into a new model that looked to create an online hub for gamers to battle each other in titles of their choosing, with money on the line.

The company has a heavy emphasis on sports titles, like FIFA 19, NBA 2K19 and Madden 19, but there are also some heavy hitters like Fortnite, Apex Legends and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Gamers can set a match or join one in head-to-head challenges or in massive 500-person tournaments. The wagers are often a buck or two but can swell much higher. Players’ Lounge takes 10 percent of the bets as a fee. Because it’s a game of skill, not chance, there aren’t many issues with gambling regulations, though a few states still don’t allow the service, the company says.

The startup plans to use their new cash to beef up their library of playable games and add to their development team.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Drake invests in esports betting startup Players’ Lounge

Editor’s note: This article is a part of our latest initiative to demystify design and find the best brand designers and agencies in the world who work with early-stage companies — nominate a talented brand designer you’ve worked with.

A brand is far more than logos and colors. A consistent brand identity not only communicates your company’s purpose and values to customers, but it also shapes your product development cycle and corporate culture. A branding project can help you figure out what and how to communicate your company’s story, but how much does it cost?

I’ve been a designer for over a decade (and a marketer before that), working with organizations ranging from tiny startups to the Fortune 500; this piece will give you a general idea of branding costs, with the knowledge that these broad numbers may not be applicable in every single case (in fact, you’re likely to find exceptions).

Bootstrappers and pre-seed startups

For most startups at this stage, your goal is to establish a proof of concept that can show product/market fit and bring investor dollars. You may only need a logo, website, and basic brand positioning. Isla Murray, Creative Director and Cofounder at Lama Six, also recommends investing your money in designing a beautiful deck: “It will set you apart and allow your message to shine through.”

Brand strategy and positioning

Positioning involves understanding who you are as a company, how your product fits the marketplace, and how you communicate your company’s values. This is the most important piece of the branding puzzle and one that’s worthwhile to begin on your own – when you have more funding, your original strategy work will give you a base for conveying your identity to professionals who can take it further. Two suggestions that designers commonly recommend are Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout and Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler, a primer on brand design.

Approximate cost: Your time.

Logo and visual identity

A brand is a relationship with your audience, and you’ll want to make sure that every interaction with them communicates your message. You’ll almost certainly need to hire a designer for this work. Sites like Fiverr and 99designs offer cheap logos, but independent consultants like Pablo Defendini advise that if you can find a small budget, you’ll get far better results by hiring an experienced professional to create a more polished logo and simple usage guide.

Approximate cost: $100-$3000.

Website

As a UX designer and front-end developer, I often recommend that young companies not spend their limited dollars on building a website from scratch – pre-built, templated websites like Squarespace can get you up and running for minimal cost, and you can buy domain names from a registrar like Namecheap. Customizations will be minimal, but you can’t beat the price.

Approximate cost: $10-30/month, plus $20/year per domain.

Early-stage, funded startups

Once you’re paying for experienced help, finding a good fit with a designer is crucial: Trust is the most important factor in a designer-client relationship, and design is ultimately a collaborative process. So take the time to find a contractor or firm that you respect and feel comfortable with.

Another option: If you already have a strong designer in-house, you might consider setting aside time for them to focus on your brand identity — they’ll cost less, and they already have intimate knowledge of your company values and audience.

Pricing comes in a wide range depending on your needs: Defindini says he’s worked on identity projects ranging from $5000 for a standalone logo to $200,000 for a complex identity system with multiple brands. Costs are also driven by scope and time. When you receive proposals from firms, be clear about your needs and transparent about what you can afford. Murray says that if clients don’t have a full budget, she’ll look for ways to scope down projects, which might involve reducing deliverables or going through fewer rounds of feedback and iteration.

Many designers will charge project rates, but if you’re paying by the hour, expect to spend $100-$150/hour for an experienced consultant and $150-$600/hour for a firm depending on their size and location.

Brand strategy and positioning

Brand strategy and positioning should drive most of your business decisions, so it’s worth taking the time to do this right. With a smaller budget, a consultant might spend a few days with your company leadership figuring out your core values and how to articulate them. For a larger budget, expect design teams to do more research and a competitive analysis, resulting in deliverables like a communication strategy and voice/tone guidelines for your marketing team.

More expensive projects may also include things like trainings to make sure your staff correctly and consistently implements your brand. In general, pricing is determined by how many people are working on your branding project and the complexity of your deliverables.

Approximate cost: $5000-$20,000 (freelancers and small firms), $30,000-$80,000 (large firms).

Logo and visual identity

Visual identity is the result of independent research, visual moodboarding, and rounds of feedback and iteration, says Murray. At the end of the process, you’ll typically receive a logo, typeface, color and design elements, and visual brand attributes. Larger-budget projects will typically involve detailed guidance on specific illustration and photography styles, iconography, and more – Murray suggests also including social media visual strategy and Instagram post templates.

Pricing here increases the more logo variations you need, the more brands you have, and the level of detail required in your visual guidance. Rounds of feedback and iteration add cost, as does the size of the team you hire.

Approximate cost: $5000-$15,000 (freelancers and small firms), $15,000-$75,000 (large firms).

Website

This is the branding piece with the greatest variability in cost, with projects getting more expensive as they require more user research, prototyping, content creation, and engineering work. Pricing is largely dependent on the complexity of engineering requirements and the number of iterations you want to go through.

Generally, you have static marketing sites on the lower end, websites built on lightweight content management systems (i.e. a custom visual design built to run on WordPress) in the middle, and web applications managing heavy databases or a more robust CMS like Sitecore or Drupal on the higher end.

Approximate cost: $2000-$20,000 (freelancers and small firms), $30,000-$200,000 (large firms).

Company name development – for more mature startups

Many startups find themselves at a stage where they’re well-funded but have a name that no longer fits – what feels right when your company is a month old and bootstrapped with your savings account may not feel the same two years later. A naming agency will develop names that work with your brand positioning, do a competitive analysis to research the tone, strength, and messaging of these names, and pre-screen them for trademark availability. (Note that you’ll typically need to hire a legal team to register the trademark once this is done.)

Approximate cost: $15,000-$75,000 (naming firm).

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution

You may hire one of the top branding agencies in the world or you may have a family member who’s an experienced designer and willing to give you an incredible deal. But no matter who you choose to work with, branding is a vital part of your business that will help you both understand and communicate who you are.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Startup branding: how much does it really cost?

MoviePass may still be trying to figure out how to make a movie ticket subscription service financially viable, but it can be credited for at least correctly identifying consumer demand for such a thing. There’s now a market for movie tickets by subscription from it as well as rivals like Sinemia, AMC Stubs A-List, Cinemark Movie Club, and — as of yesterday — newcomer Infinity. Now you can add one more: Atom Tickets, which is today announcing a platform that will allow theaters to build their own movie ticket subscription services.

The idea here is that the exhibitors themselves — not startups — should be involved in establishing the business model that’s right for them. Atom Tickets will instead provide the underlying technology and support that makes such a thing possible.

The new platform, called Atom Movie Access, will be offered to exhibitors across North America. It provides a fully digitally booking platform for subscribers through the Atom Tickets app. That means subscribers can also take advantage of Atom Tickets’ other benefits — like reserving seats in advance, inviting friends through their contacts, pre-ordering concessions for quick pickup where available and checking in using a phone instead of paper tickets.

On the back end, Atom Tickets will also handle the payment processing, customer service, fraud detection and anti-abuse measures. The latter is particularly important for movie ticket subscriptions, as MoviePass noted that as much as 20 percent of its customers were abusing the service, which significantly contributed to its financial issues.

In addition, the platform will allow subscribers to be able to make complex transactions in-app, like redeeming a free movie while also buying full-priced tickets for a guest in one sale. It also supports things like being able to choose between an included free screening or saving it for later, the company says, and allows for the creation of differently tiered plans. For example, there can be plans for both individuals or groups and tiers for standard and premium movie formats.

“Atom Tickets is an innovative ticketing platform that enables exhibitors to reach and engage new and incremental audiences,” said Matthew Bakal, chairman and co-founder of Atom Tickets, in a statement about the launch. “We’ve always believed in being a valuable partner to exhibitors, starting with the core functionality of our app, which allows for marketing promotions at specific locations, integrating exhibitor loyalty plans and giving customers the ability to pre-order concessions. Now with Atom Movie Access, we’re thrilled to provide the technology that will enhance the direct-to-consumer relationship of moviegoers with their favorite theaters.”

There are still several unknowns about the new platform — most notably the pricing for exhibitors. In an interview with Variety, Bakal suggested it would not be prohibitive as Atom Tickets would instead take a cut of subscriptions. The report also noted that no theaters have signed up yet, but the pitching will begin in earnest at a trade show next week in Las Vegas.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Atom Tickets to challenge MoviePass with a subscription ticket platform for theaters

Moolah Mobile is teaming up with SurgePhone Wireless to offer people a new way to pay their cell phone bills — by putting ads on their homescreens.

Moolah CEO Vernell Woods (pictured above) said the startup has already been offering gift cards and other rewards to users who view its homescreen ads. So this is a similar model, except instead of earning gift cards, the ads are subsidizing cell phone service from Surge.

The ads show up on users’ homescreens during interstitial moments between using apps, so the goal is to offer free service without consumers having to change their behavior. Woods said all that ad time adds up, with “the average person who’s using their phone on a consistent basis” viewing “easily between two to three hours” of homescreen ads each day. And that’s enough to pay for the “equivalent” of Surge’s $10 monthly plan.

On the other hand, if for some reason a subscriber isn’t hitting the necessary total, Woods said they can also earn more points by accepting offers or taking surveys.

Moolah isn’t the only company using advertising to make previously paid products free. Just last week, I wrote about PreShow, a startup promising a free movie ticket for watching 15 to 20 minutes of ads. (Not everyone was crazy about the idea.)

Moolah Mobile screenshot

But Woods said he’s doing this because he wants to make wireless service more affordable to people in low-income communities. In the announcement, Moolah investor Tip “T.I.” Harris said it’s “one of the few tech companies I’ve seen who truly want to help everyday people have access to technology.”

But could this also be seen as a way to harvest personal data from a vulnerable population? Woods said he wants to protect against that with a blockchain initiative set to launch this fall, allowing users to see exactly what data is being shared with advertisers.

“No personal information should be going to advertisers without users knowing about it,” he said, adding that companies “definitely should not be making money off” personal data without giving users a cut of the profits.

The subsidized wireless service should be available on Surge Volt Android devices with Moolah install kits, as well as through SIM Starter Kits distributed by Surge. Moolah and Surge said they will roll this out in Florida, Virginia, Georgia and Texas initially, with an aim of reaching 40,000 locations by the end of the year.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Moolah Mobile partners with Surge to offer free mobile service with ads

Forge, the marketplace for trading private company shares formerly known as Equidate, announced that it will be acquiring custodial trust company IRA Services for a purchase price of $55 million.

IRA Services is a trust company that provides custodial services for retirement accounts managed by individuals and mid-to-large sized Institutions. Stripped of financial jargon, the primary function of a custodian is to hold on to (or maintain “custody” of) its clients’ securities and keep them safe from potential external complications such as theft or otherwise.

Many custodians, like IRA Services, also provide administrative services such as collecting the actual dividend payments made to the owner of a stock, and advisory services such as helping clients understand what they can and should invest in.

Since its founding in 2014, Forge has been one of the primary marketplaces where employees and early investors of leading startups can monetize privately-held shares without having to wait years for an IPO, exit or liquidity event.

Forge also creates value by providing some of the world’s leading private equity and institutional investors with high-demand access to some of the top pre-IPO companies, having worked with several high-profile companies like Spotify.

By acquiring IRA Services, Forge can expand its support offerings for private market securities, and more importantly, can move closer to becoming a one-stop shop for private market investors who will no longer have to transfer shares acquired with Forge to an external custodial trust.

“Investors across asset classes want the ease, transparency, and security provided by a seamless investing experience from trading through to settlement to custody,” said IRA Services president Patrick Hughes. “In bringing together Forge and IRA Services, we look to deliver an unparalleled end-to-end investing experience for private markets investors.”

What differentiates IRA Services from other custody providers, and what makes the company particularly attractive to Forge, is that it specialized in deals involving alternative and non-traded asset classes. As a result, the company already maintains systems and workflows that are structured to deal with private securities and associated complexities.

Additionally, IRA Services’ API, which automates and supports the process of connecting custody accounts directly to investment platforms, is becoming increasingly valuable as the exchange market for private company shares, as well as average transaction size and volume, continues to swell.

Pending necessary agency approvals, the combined entity also intends to become both a registered broker-dealer and separate non-fiduciary trust company, meaning the company will be able to provide custodial services for clients even when they’re investing in assets outside of the Forge platform.

Satisfying growing needs of a budding market

The acquisition fits squarely into Forge’s long-term vision of being a leading institution in the rapidly growing private markets. “We believe that the private markets are where innovation is happening and there needs to be an institution that provides services that enable that whole ecosystem,” Forge CEO Kelly Rodriques said in a conversation with TechCrunch.

Rodriques believes that creating secure and transparent custody services for private market securities can provide millions of new investors with access to a space that is currently limited to around 400,000 private equity players, early-stage investors and early employees.

In Rodriques’ view, broadening the marketplace to more investors creates serious network effects and a significant positive flywheel. Having more participating private company investors creates more liquidity, which not only entices other investors to play in the space but also attracts more private companies to partner with Forge and provide access to their shares.

At the same time, innovative startups are continuing to grow larger in size, with more than 250 private companies around the world boasting valuations of $1 billion or greater. Companies are also opting to stay private for longer due to the growing availability of late-stage capital, the desire to operate strategically without the scrutiny of the public markets and quarterly performance requirements, or otherwise.

As a result, locating sources of secure daily liquidity is becoming a bigger need for more private companies. Forge believes that with its growing set of offerings and the credibility it has earned from working with key regulators and several of the world’s largest financial institutions, Forge is well-positioned to be the go-to solution for secondary market investors and companies alike.

“Our long-term hope is that our technology will be used to make the private market ecosystem stable, safe and sound,” Rodriques told TechCrunch.

The near-term outlook for Forge doesn’t look too bad either. Forge almost doubled its trading volume in 2018, surpassing just shy of $2 billion worth of transactions, with the company expecting another billion dollars in transactions by the end of the year.

As with any large acquisition, particularly in the financial services sector and particularly in the US, the companies will have to receive the requisite regulatory approvals to complete the deal in full. While the companies haven’t expressed an official expected close date for the deal, Forge expects the regulatory process will take anywhere from two-to-four months.

The trust side of the business will transition its name to Forge Trust once the deal closes to better reflect the custodial services gained through IRA Services and the new company’s full suite of capabilities. Additionally, IRA Services CEO, Edwin Blue, will retire from the company, though current IRA Services employees will continue to operate from the firm’s existing offices.

To date, Forge has raised around $88.5 million in venture capital, according to data from Crunchbase, with backing from a number of Silicon Valley heavy hitters including Peter Thiel, Tim Draper, Scott Bannister, Charlie Cheever, and others.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Forge acquires IRA Services to expand offering for private company shares