Livewire has announced its expansion into the US and DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) markets.
This comes after the global gaming marketing and gametech company recently received Series A funding raise and established strategic partnerships with multinational global advertising agencies and brands.
At just 18 months old, the company, co-founded by Indy Khabra and Brad Manuel, is already in four live markets, with teams in Mumbai, Singapore, London and across Australia.
With the business seeing exponential growth, Livewire has opened new offices led by market heavyweights leading North America and the DACH regions.
Joining as head of Livewire, North America, is Scott Linzer who brings over 20 years of media and sales experience in senior leadership agency positions, including iCrossing, AKQA, Universal McCann and Havas Media.
Lizner’s recent leadership roles include Quantcast, MediaMath and Frameplay, at which he was the senior vice president of global business development overseeing all sales and partnership efforts for the in-game advertising startup.
Linzer said: “In the US, gaming has become a mainstream form of entertainment and Newzoo has ranked the US as the second largest global market with 197.16 million gamers recorded in 2022, and the sector valued at $47.62 billion. It’s an exciting time to be entering a business such as Livewire to really dominate and leverage a highly influential sector.”
Scott Linzer
Frank Sueltmann has also joined the company, stepping into the role of head of Livewire DACH. He brings 21 years of experience in the digital economy focusing on advertising, audience targeting, advertising effectiveness, technology and data to the company.
The new role for Sueltmann follows his senior roles at Amnet (the Dentsu programmatic experts), OMD Hamburg and Nielsen Online, where he focused on audience measurement and effectiveness.
Sueltmann said of his appointment: “It’s an exciting proposition to bring such an innovative company like Livewire into our markets to gain traction in the gaming marketing space.
“In Germany alone, the gaming market is worth 10 billion Euros, with 50% of adults playing mobile games, so there is an increasing appetite in this space with endless potential.
“With my extensive background in business development and new opportunities, I see Livewire as providing an offering that will be a gamechanger for brands seeking big results.”
Frank Sueltmann
Livewire’s momentum in current markets has been strong, securing recent partnerships such as the National Basketball League on the NBA 2K League team – NBL Oz Gaming, and Uber Eats amongst many others.
Livewire co-founders and co-CEOs said that this was indicative of the global demand for integrated marketing strategies to reach a highly lucrative audience, with the new market launches aimed to capitalise on this demand.
Khabra and Manuel said: “What we’ve seen in such a short time is that advertisers from around the world want to move past traditional methods of advertising and reach audiences in different ways.
“Our expansion into the US and DACH markets opens opportunities for current partners to expand their scope and new partners to engage the gaming audience before they are left behind.
“Both Scott and Frank come with decades of experience in their respective markets and will be instrumental in seamlessly building and executing gaming strategies with maximum results.”
As well as Livewire’s ad marketplace and proprietary technology tools for clients, Livewire has secured exclusive partnerships across ANZ and APAC for in-game advertising media, equating to over 55 billion impressions across the Livewire Ad Marketplace.