Graphyte Success Story: Supporting Startup from Idea to Exit

Graphyte is a leading SaaS provider of personalization tools for betting operators, having introduced unique AI solutions to the iGaming industry. The London-based startup was founded in 2018 and, after starting its partnership with Symphony Solutions, went on to introduce a lineup of AI-powered products that positively transform the experience of a bettor and drive betting operators to enhance user experience through personalization. 

Graphyte and Symphony Solutions: Start of a Partnership 

Graphyte startup came to Symphony Solutions as a startup in October 2018, having developed the MVP of their product and catching the interest of their first client. Seeking to bring it forth and take up its place in the iGaming market, Graphyte required expert technical support in order to bring the idea to the point where it could go into production and start generating revenue. 

How did Graphyte come to know that Symphony Solutions was just what they needed to get started on their journey? In a way, this was a ‘rite of passage’. Rob Davis, CTO of Graphyte, previously worked as Ladbrokes Coral CTO with Symphony Solutions, having established a strong professional relationship during that time. When selecting their vendor, Graphyte reached out to Theo Schnitfink, Founder and CEO of Symphony Solutions, seeking startup consultancy for something that was about to become an industry disruptor. Starting in November 2018, the partnership was set to sail toward the great achievements to come. 

AI Approach to iGaming: Unique Product Proposition

Symphony Solutions team provided Graphyte with end-to-end development of a SaaS product that operates as an AI-powered personalization engine to be used by betting operators. 

Graphyte products utilize the power of AI to take real-time gameplay and transform it into an interactive experience with smart recommendations and personalization. What makes Graphyte’s product line-up stand out in the market though, is that the flexible solutions can be easily deployed without any heavy-duty coding or changes to the core CMS of the betting operator’s website or mobile app. Just like that, a new client can start benefiting from the products in a matter of a few business days. 

Graphyte Recommend

The first in the industry, Graphyte Recommend was the idea that started the client’s partnership with Symphony Solutions and became a viable product by February 2019. Bringing together AI and iGaming, the product was a personalization engine with the purpose to generate real-time recommendations for bettors. The only recommendation platform to exist for the iGaming industry that can be easily integrated into betting platforms, it became a game changer. Symphony Solutions together with Graphyte entered an entirely new realm of iGaming, where AI would lead the way. 

Momentum 

Momentum brings the social element to the bettor’s experience with trends and popular content. The AI tool tracks in real time what games, events, or markets are on the rise in popularity and utilizes social proof to optimize content. 

Intelligent Layouts 

Intelligent Layouts were introduced in 2019 and are by design an AI-powered smart lobby for online casinos that creates a personalized environment for bettors, all with homepages, dashboards, and navigation. It’s the virtual casino environment that has everything in place to satisfy the needs of the bettor, introduce them to new content, and keep them coming back for more. 

Engage 

Engage tool alerts the users to engage with content they might find interesting, through sending push notifications, email, and text messages. It’s the ultimate engagement tool, hence the name, that applying precise user targeting algorithms and campaigns, personalized to each user’s needs and interests. Engage triggers the users to interact with relevant content and derive true satisfaction from using the application. 

Retarget 

Retarget tool is aimed at grasping the interest of potential new users by showing them personalized ads while they may be browsing third-party websites. Created with the goal to qualitatively target the end user and bring them to the bettor operator. 

Site search 

AI-powered instant search through channels and the product overall with a keen focus on sports betting and casino. The tool helps the bettors to get time-sensitive, accurate, and personalized results, optimized for the bettor’s preferences and previous search history. 

Symphony Solutions Team Composition and Contribution 

Symphony Solutions is involved in the full-cycle software development of Graphyte products, overtaking the entire SDLC – the end-to-end services follow the product from the idea inception to maintenance. 

The Graphyte team started out with a small team of engineers and testers headed up by a Service Delivery Manager, and gradually grew to two engineering teams. Symphony Solutions worked on creating the initial product and continued making integrations once the system successfully went into production and new clients were onboarded. Gradually, the team developed new products that added to Graphyte’s unique proposition of AI-powered solutions for betting operators. 

Symphony Solutions expert team took over the process of creating Graphyte products, which included: 

• Applying the original research to create an MVP that can be used by Graphyte clients. 
• Developing backend and frontend of the product. 
• Continuing the work to develop new unique solutions and expand on Graphyte’s product proposition. 

From the very beginning of the project, Symphony Solutions team were in for a handful of exciting projects with the full-scope omnichannel strategy entailing QA services, DevOps, website development, and marketing.  

In 2020, an entirely separate project took off with the aim of optimizing the cost of infrastructure to help Graphyte’s further growth. What at the time was still a small team, managed to deliver quality solutions, respond to any technical challenges, and fully satisfy the business needs of the client. Infrastructure optimization helped take the accomplishments of the team to a new level – the team implemented process automation and introduced solutions for easy scaling and new client integration, mitigating any scaling issues, and allowing Graphyte to grow rapidly. The created environment provided the tools and resources that laid out the foundation for a successful launch of the product to new markets in a matter of weeks. 

Over the course of cooperation, six independent projects were developed with dozens of new clients integrated. Gradually, this required growing to two engineering teams, which supported the full lifecycle of the project. Essentially, what Symphony Solutions did was an omnichannel solution provided with a full scope of services, from development to marketing. 

2022 New Perspectives: Optimove Acquires Graphyte 

At the start of 2022, Optimove being a leading CRM marketing platform leveraging AI-powered solutions, expressed an interest in acquiring Graphyte. The company saw the benefit of leveraging Graphyte’s offer of an innovative AI-powered recommendation engine with no similar alternatives in the market. Leveraging their own work in AI solutions, Optimove saw the potential of integrating Graphyte’s product line-up with their own capabilities and extensive database, aiming at a solution that would deliver a holistic user journey for iGaming clients as well as enable Graphyte to explore new non-gaming verticals. 

Preparing for Growth: Graphyte Agile Transformation 

Starting in September 2022, Symphony Solutions set out on a new adventure in our partnership with Graphyte, now determined to see them through their Agile Transformation as an important part of preparing for future growth. With the foundation laid out for achieving technical excellence, we needed to make sure that Graphyte team was ready to fully embrace the Agile way of working and empower its teams to strive for excellence in both product quality and process efficiency. 

Agile at heart and in work practices, Symphony Solutions has helped many clients achieve Business Agility, so we were excited to now move in that direction with our trusted client Graphyte. Starting out with a team of six or seven and growing to two development teams over the course of our collaboration, and now going through Optimove acquisition, Graphyte expects to see further growth. To assist with that, Symphony Solutions started off helping Graphyte teams apply the principles of Agile in order to clearly understand their team composition, roles and responsibilities, optimize work processes, improve transparency, and take ownership of the project execution from the position of a Scrum team. 

Start of Another Great Journey 

Working alongside Graphyte from the very beginning, and seeing them grow and transform, we are now excited to help them enter a new phase in their journey as a company. This is the beginning of something new and exciting. 

Symphony Solutions took on the project, one brilliant idea, and worked alongside Graphyte to see the company develop into an established player on the market with a unique proposition that carries itself and has the potential to transform iGaming for years to come.