Vladimir Negine: “We know what not to build and deliver what really matters”

This week we sit down with St8.io CEO and Founder Vladimir Negine discussing St8.io’s mission to save operators time and increase operational efficiency. Negine has much insight to bring to the table, explaining how his company helps steer clients and partners towards better and more frictionless results, leveraging innovative tech. Negine’s understanding of the industry and how the company needs to take a closer look at the way they gather and offer content helps partners create a tailored offer that does not miss on value-added propositions and products.

Q: As the year begins, what are St8.io’s plans for the next 12 months?

We want to continue to grow and challenge the conventional logic of what content aggregation should look like.

For us, that means focusing on technical excellence, delivering fair pricing and building those deep partnerships with operators that allow us to cooperate to the benefit of the end user. We’ll continue removing more of the manual work that distracts and slows down operators, and replace it with automated, tech-based solutions that simply just work.

Pricing is an increasingly sensitive topic in our industry these days, particularly as competition in both maturing and emerging markets continues to intensify. We’re very much focused on the long-term, rather than grabbing short-term gains.

Regulated markets are another area we’re really focused on. We recently added Romania, and we’ll be looking to bring our technology to more regulated jurisdictions over the coming months.

We’ll also be adding more functionality to St8 that will allow us to work more closely with our operators. We see ourselves as a partner rather than a supplier, and we love nothing more than when an operator comes to us with an idea and asks us whether we can make it a reality. We want to find new ways to push this industry forward, and that only happens when we develop those deep partnerships.

Q: What have been your biggest milestones in 2023?

We’re a relatively new business that’s only been in the game for around 18 months, so we’re really proud of what we managed to achieve in 2023. Being a start-up in an industry as competitive as online casino is not easy, and you’ve got to truly believe in what you are doing to have a chance.

If I was to pick out a few highlights, I’d have to start with onboarding more than 4,000 games from 45 providers in 2023 alone. That’s almost a new supplier per week, ensuring we always have something new for our partners.

We launched a handful of industry-first innovations we’re really proud of as well. Our Jackpot API supports network jackpots and allows operators to agree and implement individual jackpot arrangements with suppliers. Meanwhile, St8 Thumbnails, which is again available fully via API, hands operators full control over custom game thumbnails in six different ratios, empowering them to really differentiate their product from the competition.

And we were also thrilled to receive a Class II licence from Romania’s National Gambling Office (ONJN) last September. Most new gaming suppliers don’t enter regulated markets for some time, so it underlines the speed of our progress to receive this licence so early in our development.

Q: What in the current landscape for API and aggregation technology solutions has compelled you to pursue your own version of the aggregation platform and do it differently?

I’ve been working in this specific space for several years now, and it is one of the fastest-changing in all of the industry. It wasn’t that long ago that aggregators were seen as the lazy option, and the common sense take was that operators which wanted to offer a truly great experience to their players needed to integrate content directly.

As the sheer volume of world-class content has increased, that’s become impossible if you want to offer thousands of games to players. What St8 set out to do from the beginning was to combine the depth of integration you get when going direct with the convenience of an aggregator. It has proven a compelling proposition and one that previously hasn’t been available to operators.

With a lot of aggregators, the operator misses out on the extra value games studios are providing alongside their games. That might be network tournaments, promotional tools, jackpot functionality and much more. We’re dedicated to working closely with operators to deliver maximum value, and that’s normally by tailoring an approach that works specifically for them. We see this as the future of content aggregation.

Q: How future-proof is St8.io?

So, from a pure tech perspective, our stack is cutting-edge. We’re a new, agile business that’s built from the ground up, so we aren’t weighed down by years of legacy technology that prevent us from innovating. Considering our domain knowledge, we know what not to build and instead deliver what really matters.

But I’d say what truly future-proofs us is our mindset. We’ve worked in this industry long enough to know that change can happen very quickly. We’re cultivating really strong relationships with both the game studios and our operator partners to truly understand what life is like on either side of the fence. At the end of the day, we’re all here to give players the best possible experience. That’s only possible with deep cooperation, and I believe our role is to better facilitate that.

Q: Are there specific challenges that you are looking to tackle in 2024?

I think part of the benefit of being a young company is that we’re in a position where we can jump on opportunities as they present themselves.

Of course, we have an exciting roadmap of new features and functionality for the platform that we’ll be rolling out throughout 2024. This is designed to make the lives of both operators and providers a lot easier. And on top of this, we’re also looking forward to exploring opportunities in new markets around the world, whether those be emerging or regulated.

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