How can emerging companies navigate the world of private capital?

Tripledot Studios relies on trusted partners to ensure successful investment rounds. It was during seed funding that Shiff started working with Howard Watt, now a partner at law firm Fladgate. Watt specialises in advising both companies receiving venture capital investment and the investors themselves. “It's useful to sit on both sides of that fence to understand what the investors want and to be able to then convey that to the founders,” says Watt.

It was in 2016 that Shiff first noticed an opportunity in the games market. “I felt that a part of the mobile games ecosystem was misunderstood and I decided to start Tripledot, which was specifically trying to build mobile games which are monetised with ads.”
From the first days of their seven-year working relationship, Shiff and Watt appreciated in one another a pragmatic and straight-talking approach that helped to keep deals on track during demanding investment rounds. “All the transaction work we've been doing together, [whether] it's mergers or acquisitions or financing, comes down to the last couple of weeks,” says Shiff. “They all end up being quite intense with long nights and weekends. The partnership has been key to our success.”

Shiff decided to act on his realisation that lacking sufficient capital slowed down his previous company’s capacity to grow. “You need capital to hire a great team,” he says. “And, in our business, we spend a lot of money on marketing, so it’s about having capital to deploy there. In our latest stage, we started engaging in mergers and acquisitions and acquiring other studios. You need significant capital for that.”

Watt believes that growing the company through private capital has conferred advantages beyond the balance sheet. “It has enabled Tripledot Studios to have a bunch of investors sitting on the board of directors, who can open doors and give their perspective of how they've grown other companies and what they've seen in the markets with other companies,” says Watt. “All of that contributes to the success story of this company and where it's going to go.”

Tripledot Studios now has 60mn people playing its games every month and topped Deloitte’s 2022 UK Technology Fast 50 awards for the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies. Not only have Shiff and Watt seen Tripledot expand, but they’ve also seen their professional relationship turn into a friendship.

Watt says: “I spend a lot of my time with Tripledot feeling honoured to be in the same room as them and to be trusted with them, advising them on various steps on that journey.” For Shiff, too, it is nice to get the recognition of awards, but it’s the personal relationships he values most. “I fell in love with the gaming industry because it has a unique mix of creativity, technology and business,” he says. But what I'm most proud of is the team that we built. We have offices in seven different countries, with so many brilliant and talented people working for us. I feel humbled and honoured that they chose to join us.”