Loudplay Global

History

2023

Stop selling office software from the cloud

As representatives of LP Technologies LLC told TAdviser in July 2023, the information that Loudplay Global or LP Technologies LLC sells station software through the cloud does not correspond to reality.

Business sale in Russia

In Russia, Loudplay worked through LP Technologies LLC. ^[1] of ^[2].

In April 2023, a deal was launched to sell the Irish company LoudPlay Global Limited to the Russian company LP Technologies LLC. The new owners of the Russian legal entity are the top managers of the company (individual). Information about the deal with TAdviser was shared by representatives of LP Technology in July 2023. As of July 4, 2023, the deal has not yet been completed.

2022

Diginavis sale of its stake in Loudplay Global

According to TAdviser in LP Technologies LLC in early July 2023, Diginavis at the end of 2022 sold its stake in Loudplay Global to a European company, the name of which was not specified.

Start of sales of sanctioned software through the cloud

As it became known on June 16, 2022, the Loudplay service, co-owned by ex-Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov, begins selling software from manufacturers who have left Russia through the cloud. The company says that the scheme used can formally be considered gray.

The license can be bought for an infrastructure partner located, for example, in Turkey, Kazakhstan or another country, and customers from Russia will work with it through the cloud, "Vitaly Starodubov, co-founder of Loudplay, explained to Kommersant.

Loudplay service, co-owned by ex-Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov, begins selling sanctions software through the cloud

According to him, due to the withdrawal from the Russian market of suppliers of solutions for 3D modeling, developers and architects who are ready to buy access to such software through the cloud have noticeably suffered.

Nikolay Komlev, Executive Director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises, called the Loudplay project controversial. On the one hand, it is harmful to Russian software developers, who in the near future will be able to take the places of departed foreign vendors. But on the other hand, the ability to temporarily use foreign solutions will mitigate the import substitution process for Russian software consumers, Komlev said.

Lawyer Alexander Kukuev clarified that foreign IT companies that announced the suspension of work on the Russian market did this voluntarily, and not because of sanctions. Therefore, he sees no risks in the idea of ​ ​ Loudplay. Lawyer Kirill Nikitin believes that everything depends on the conditions of a specific license and if they are violated, users risk losing paid access to the service at any time.

Boris Edidin, a member of the Commission on Legal Support of the Digital Economy of the Moscow Branch of the Russian Bar Association, believes that the scheme is "very vulnerable both technically and legally."

One of the features of information products is that defining end users for a developer is not a difficult task, he explains.[3]

Start of work in Qatar

On February 9, 2022, it became known that the Loudplay game service, in which ex-Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov had previously invested, was starting to work in Qatar. To do this, the company entered into an agreement with the telecommunications operator Vodafone.

As the co-founder of Loudplay Vitaly Starodubov told Kommersant, in March 2022 the platform will begin providing cloud gaming services from Vodafone in Qatar on the terms of revenue sharing (distribution of the total amount of income from services between stakeholders or project participants). Vodafone also confirmed the launch of the service in partnership with Loudplay in the first half of the year. The service will use Huawei's infrastructure.

Game service Loudplay with investments of ex-Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov begins to work in Qatar

The publication notes that by February 2022, Vodafone is already developing 5G in Qatar, so the company is interested in services based on this communication standard for the mass segment. Investments in this project were not disclosed.

From Qatar, Loudplay can extend its services to the UAE and other Gulf countries, said Igor Dorofeev, president of the Association of Data Center Industry Participants. In his opinion, Loudplay will have no problems with the delivery of content if it manages to use the data centers deployed in Qatar.

By February 2022, there is high competition in the Middle East market between cloud gaming providers both among local players (for example, Boosteroid present in the UAE) and among members of the GeForce NOW alliance, says GFN.ru Executive Director Pavel Troitsky.

The success of Loudplay will depend, firstly, on how well they build the infrastructure, and secondly, on the quality of the stack, the hardware and software complex, he said.[4]

2020: Diginavis takes minority stake in Loudplay

Former Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov said that his company Diginavis LLC acquired a minority stake in the developer of the cloud gaming service Loudplay. He did not name the amount of the transaction. It was closed on April 20, 2020. This was announced on April 21, 2020 by Interfax.

According to Nikiforov, the funds were provided in the form of a convertible loan with a subsequent additional issue.

The co-investor of Diginavis in Loudplay was a European venture capital fund, the name of which was not disclosed.

The Loudplay website says the service allows you to play computer games from PCs and laptops via a connection to a game server. The cost of renting a server in the Loudplay cloud is from 50 rubles per hour. The service also allows you to participate in e-sports tournaments, stream games on WASD and Twitch platforms, etc. Loudplay works in Russia and the CIS countries, the audience of the project as of April 21, 2020 exceeds 100,000 people.

In February 2020, Kommersant wrote that Loudplay was launched by immigrants from Megalabs (a 100 percent subsidiary of Megafon PJSC), including ex-special projects manager Zokhar Viner and ex-director of operations Vitaly Starodubov.

Loudplay's 2019 figures have not been disclosed. But, according to Nikiforov, Russia accounts for about 60-70% of Loudplay's revenue, and this share is decreasing, the company received another 30% of revenue in 2019 from foreign customers.

Loudplay will direct the funds raised to accelerate the development of technology and strengthen international development, Nikiforov explained. In particular, Loudplay plans to go out and take a leading position in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

In February 2020, Loudplay agreed with Megafon to launch joint cloud gaming.

For expansion, Loudplay will concentrate on partnerships with foreign telecom operators and technology sector companies.

The company's business strategy provides for the development of direct service revenue and partnership with international operators under the revenue sharing model. We also work closely with large international technology companies that are interested in the topic of cloud gaming. In particular, the company cooperates Huawei with and discusses partnerships American with the operator. data centers Equinix told Nikiforov

According to analytical data from the Newzoo resource, in 2019 the global cloud gaming market amounted to $158 million. According to Newzoo's baseline scenario, the market size could reach $356 million in 2020 and $3.2 billion by the end of 2023.

Nikolay Nikiforov was Minister of Communications from 2012 to 2018. After that, he established several companies on the territory of Innopolis to develop projects in the field of end-to-end technologies, including Diginavis.

In September 2019, Nikiforov attracted the state corporation Rostec"" in the capital of his company-developer of the movement control system drones - LLC "Center for Movement Organization" unmanned vehicles^[5]

Notes