Iconicfuture — which offers a marketplace for brands who want to license their IP to online and mobile games developers for the use in digital and virtual goods — has a raised a €2.5 million ($~3.3m) series B round from German VC Creathor Venture. This brings the total raised by the Hamburg-based company to 4.2 million euros, while the fresh injection of capital will be used to expand its portfolio of rights and geographical footprint, and to further develop its technology.
Iconicfuture aims to streamline the clearing of rights for game developers who want to offer/sell premium digital and virtual goods within their online and mobile games. Developers register with the marketplace and can then search through available rights. To begin licensing IP, they are asked to sign a master agreement with Iconicfuture which then enables them to source all of the rights they require for each game being developed without having to sign multiple contracts with different rights holders.
Meanwhile, for the rights holders themselves, the platform offers a “one stop shop” to manage all of their interaction with games companies, including their own profile which provides all the relevant information required for licensing. Furthermore, Iconicfuture helps match brands to developers, as well as updating the rights holder on progress, tracking IP usage by its licensees, and collecting payments.
The company says that since being founded in 2012, it’s enabled the sale of over 1 million premium virtual items from brands such as Real Madrid, Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona, The German National Soccer Team, CBS, American Greetings, Elvis Presley Enterprises and Aardman Entertainment. It works with a number of well-known games developers, including Bigpoint, Travian Games, Outfit7 and Digital Chocolate.
Iconicfuture’s previous backers include Thomas Martens, a major shareholder and Executive Chairman of Iconicfuture, and Peter Möhrle Holding.