Q&A: Nektan chief Gary Shaw talks IPO

eGaming Review (eGR): Nektan will list on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) later this month – why is the timing right to do so?

Gary Shaw (GS): We didn’t want to do anything pre-launching the platform in April. There have been many occasions where operators have tried to build platforms in last five or six years but have then had to bin their attempts and deal with one of the suppliers. So a driver was to make sure that we weren’t listing a business from a standpoint of operating fragile technology. We wanted to know that first of all the reliability was there, and we’ve not had one minute of downtime since launch.

However, the biggest driver is for transparency with a lot of US companies we are in discussions with. For a small private business based out of Gibraltar and London it is very difficult for us to explain who we are and what we are. The fact we’ll be a listed company in London on AIM will allow us to be far more transparent with prospective clients.

eGR: You have highlighted the potential for growth in the US. Can you tell us a little about your plans for that market?

GS: I’m actually going back to the US later this week as we are looking at securing a JV and doing a joined-up proposition around mobile. It will link slot machines to mobile devices so you can play on the same game on a slot machine as you can on a mobile device and offer linked-up jackpots. So that’s the kind of activity we are talking about.

We are going to start with products in-venue but we are looking to make an aggressive move into online RMG with a series of opportunities that are arising. We are very B2B so we aren’t going into the market with B2C ambitions. We aim to facilitate a lot of the organisations who are already established brands in multiple states, so operators that are already existing.

eGR: What other markets or revenue streams will you be looking to exploit?

GS: We find the UK quite a saturated market so we are going to be doing quite a lot more innovation in Scandinavia and we’ll be working with the usual suspects on the mobile gaming side. So we’ll be working mainly with the innovative operators, the Mr Greens, the LeoVegases, and so on. They’ll be taking our Remote Gaming Server. But in cases where they are not sophisticated operators and are looking to open up to regulated gaming, we’ll supply the end-to-end solution for them.

eGR: What do you mean by ‘not sophisticated’?

GS: Well, media companies have now woken up to the fact that they are digital entertainment businesses and are having a look at what they can offer [in terms of egaming]. Also, a study by JP Morgan recently found that 33% of consumers gamble in pubs and bars so we have been talking to pub chains as there is an opportunity there for them. Of course it would have to be in a regulated way but there is no doubt some chains will enter the mobile gaming market and will be creating products and we will be a great company for them to work with.

eGR: The IPO is expected to raise around £4m in capital – how will this be used?

GS: The extra capital is being used to continue to develop the product and to enter new markets so we can really establish ourselves. One of the reasons to go public was that if we do land some huge deals in the US we’ll be able to access more capital through being a public company more quickly. When you are a private company, to do a rights issues is a pain and this gets rid of a load of those issues.