The web shop and alternative payments market continues to hot up with the ‘soft launch’ of Aghanim, a new start-up formed by three former Xsolla execs.
The company has landed investment from Bessemer Venture Partners, QED Investors, Point72 Ventures, and A16z Games Speedrun, but the total raised is not been disclosed.
Its founders are former Xsolla CEO and CTO Konstantin Golubitsky, ex-Xsolla Labs CEO Constantin Andry and Albert Tugushev, former Xsolla Labs CTO.
Aghanim describes itself as an “integrated commerce, liveops automation, community engagement, and payments platform.” It is based in LA, with a satellite office in Lisbon, Portugal.
The company says it’ll also offer website creation, liveops tools, analytics and a “mobile first” billing engine. It has also hyped up its generative AI copilot Newton, which will be available to Aghanim customers.
“Soon, you will be able to simply task Newton to increase LTV and cut distribution costs, and he will work 24/7/365 to A/B test email messaging, experiment with monetization offers, and run it all through different segments within the available toolset to achieve the best possible result for you,” said Aghanim cofounder Konstantin Golubitsky.
Fellow Aghanim cofounder Constantin Andry added: “Not having a direct-to-consumer strategy could be an existential threat for mobile game publishers who have historically been too reliant on distribution channels. Studios are now strategically considering having their own standalone game hub rather than web checkout that barely delivers results.”
Meanwhile, over at the Aghanim founders’ former workplace Xsolla, GamesBeat reports that it has reshuffled its leadership a little. Former Epic Games executive David Stelzer is now president of Xsolla, and Chris Hewish, formerly interim CEO, is now chief strategy officer. Shurick Agapitov, Xsolla’s founder, remains CEO.
Aghanim is the latest direct-to-consumer contender to emerge in this increasingly competitive space. Twitch cofounder Justin Kan, ex-Googler Dan Borstelmann and Zynga veteran Robin Chan recently revealed their webshop venture Stash, describing it as the ‘Shopify for games’.
