The uptake of customer relationship management (CRM) tools has grown immensely over the last few years such that the market size is expected to experience a 12.5% compound annual growth rate, and be worth $145.79 billion in the next six years. This growth is largely attributable to the uptick of online merchants using CRM tools to boost sales, increase profits and beat mounting competition from other providers.

One such platform that is helping consumer brands leverage their data to grow is Gameball, a customer intelligence and marketing CRM platform, that was launched in 2020 by Egyptian entrepreneurs Ahmed Khairy (CEO), Ahmed El Assy (CPO) and Omar Alfar (CTO).

Gameball says brands use its tools to build long-term relationships with customers and ensure retention through personalized loyalty programs that are informed by data.

Khairy told TechCrunch that since the startup’s launch, growth has been exponential and they have so far served more than 7,000 businesses reaching 20 million customers. The startup plans to grow this further by embarking on a marketing drive and setting up hubs in regions where its platform is on demand over the next one year.

Gameball’s expansion drive is backed by a $3.5 million seed funding it has raised from 500 Global, P1 Ventures and Launch Africa and Middle East VCs Seedra Ventures, Arzan Ventures, Propeller and Core Vision, as well as a number of regional investors.

“Moving forward we are focusing more on commercializing the product. We are also trying to focus on certain countries that will give us access to certain regions…like the U.K to give us access to Europe, and Saudi Arabia for the GCC region,” said Khairy.

“We have been seeing a lot of growth coming from those markets, and beyond being mature markets, it’s easier for them to adopt solutions and technologies like Gameball. Their economies are kind of stable, enabling us to better leverage them for growth.”

Hisham Halbouny, general partner at P1 Ventures, said: “The consumer landscape is evolving rapidly with brands competing for customer engagement, trust and retention. Gameball is solving a large multibillion-dollar challenge that can transform digital marketing, customer loyalty and monetization around the world. We are thrilled to back the team on their journey as they grow their footprint in new markets.”

Khairy, Assy and Alfar started building Gameball as a Shopify app, before moving on to build an API solution for businesses outside Shopify.

Khairy says clients using their platform can carry out multi-channel marketing campaigns, run loyalty programs, build customer profiles for targeted promotions and offer rewards for increased engagement.

“Our clients have a lot of channels and interaction points with the customers, but bringing all those things together in a single dashboard, where they can actually have better visibility on their customer behavior and customer insights and then use this data to run efficient marketing campaigns is one the biggest pain for our customers. So, we started building for that problem,” said Khairy.

Gameball’s clientele include Sega, Xiaomi, Experience Philippines and Breadfast. Image Credits: Gameball.

Khairy added that through analyzing customer behavior, Gameball is able to give brands monetization opportunities, and help them upsell and cross-sell efficiently across their customer base.

“We empower marketers to get better insights, data and visibility on the customer behavior. We basically give them the tools to run the retention and marketing campaigns more efficiently based on this data, and to personalize and make more money out of those relationships,” he said.

He added that the platform helps brands to tap existing customers, who are capable of bringing greater value to businesses than new customers. Besides, businesses no longer need to spend blindly on customer acquisition through paid ads as they have an opportunity to tap existing ones via targeted campaigns and loyalty programs.

Gameball’s customers cut across all sectors including ecommerce, retail and fintech. Its clientele include Sega, Xiaomi, Experience Philippines and Breadfast.