GamerPay

GamerPay ApS operates as a peer-to-peer (P2P) online marketplace focused on the secure trading of in-game assets, primarily for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). The company was established in Copenhagen, Denmark, on November 20, 2020, by a team including Martin Lykke Suhr, Mathias Skousbøll Hermansen, Morten Byskov, Rasmus Andersen, and Peter Haldbæk. The founding was spurred by research involving 5,000 European gamers, which revealed that 46% had been scammed, a significant portion of whom were minors. This experience directly shaped GamerPay's core mission: to create a secure and easy-to-use trading environment, eliminating the risk of monetary loss for gamers.

The founders brought significant marketplace experience to the venture. Martin Lykke Suhr, along with other team members, previously co-founded and scaled Trendsales, Denmark's largest transactional marketplace for secondhand high-end clothing, to one million users and a substantial gross merchandise value. This background in building and operating successful e-commerce platforms provided a solid foundation for GamerPay. The team's expertise is varied, with CEO Mathias Hermansen having experience at eBay, Martin Lykke Suhr handling coding, growth, and customer service, and Peter Haldbæk leading front-end development.

GamerPay's business model is centered on facilitating direct trades between users. When an item is sold, it is transferred directly from the seller's Steam inventory to the buyer's, which allows sellers to list their items on multiple platforms simultaneously. To ensure transaction security, GamerPay holds the buyer's payment in escrow until the trade is validated and the item is correctly transferred. Revenue is generated not from the trades themselves within the wallet, but through fees on deposits, such as those made via bank or card to fund the initial purchase. Since June 2023, the platform has offered zero-fee transactions for users buying and selling items using their GamerPay wallet balance, a move designed to encourage safer trading practices.

Since its global launch in May 2021, GamerPay has achieved notable milestones, including participation in the Y Combinator Summer 2021 batch. The company has secured $2.25 million in funding over several rounds, with a significant $2 million seed round in October 2021 led by investors like FundersClub, PreSeed Ventures, and Skyfall Ventures. It has attracted prominent angel investors, including Michael Seibel (co-founder of Twitch) and Heini Zachariassen (co-founder of Vivino). The platform is fully compliant with European financial legislation, utilizing the payment processor LemonWay to handle funds, which adds a layer of reliability for its user base, a large portion of which is in Europe.

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