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Our subsidiary group Wegesrand (ed-tech segment) had a turnover of approximately SEK 26.5 million in 2022, an organic growth of 24% in one year. Through the recent issues, we have been able to secure the necessary capital to further invest in the ed-tech segment, where we see great growth potential. It is clear to us that the Serious Games and Playful Learning segments have a significant and growing market and we see how our subsidiaries perform continuously with new assignments and are rewarded with prestigious appointments.

We seek a balance between organic growth (through our expanding ed-tech segment) and new acquisitions. Thanks to the issues, we can partly strengthen our subsidiaries in their expansion work and partly initiate acquisition plans. We are currently looking at two acquisition candidates that fit our current structure, operate in the same geographic market and have a financial foundation in their portfolio. For us, it is important that all potential acquisitions fill the strategic gaps that have been identified.

Consistent cost efficiencies throughout the group

The entire group has undergone a cost-saving and efficiency program for the past six months. When we bought Wegesrand, it was a group of companies with six different companies. We are in the process of simplifying the structure, which will result in significant cost savings. The objective in the slightly longer term is to merge the companies into a subsidiary. The parent company Wicket Gaming has also worked intensively with cost-effectiveness, this refers to development costs as well as salaries and other compensations. The purpose of this exercise is to be able to reach a positive cash flow and positive EBITDA more quickly. We are on the right track - our German subsidiaries showed a positive EBITDA for the second quarter of 2023.

EXCITING ED-TECH & GAMES TITLES

We are not a single-game company, but have a whole portfolio of interesting titles.

King Royale

The work on further improving King Royale is ongoing at the time of writing, we have contacted experts in Idle mobile games to further optimize King Royale. The biggest update to date, “Gacha” system, has been implemented. “Gacha” allows users to purchase different weapons or relics that give different abilities in the battle against monsters and bosses.  Soon we will be launching new kings with different features to give the user more choices so that they can put their own stamp on the game, this is a feature requested by our existing users.  King Royale has strong KPIs and is continuously 'featured' in the App Store, with these current conditions we aim to secure a publishing deal with a leading game publisher before the end of 2023. There are a number of different publishers out there but we have got  props from two of the ten largest and this has spurred our development team to increase the pace of performance.

Tank Operations

Tank Operations is a proprietary title (developed by our wholly owned subsidiary Linked Dimensions GmbH) and it is available as "early access" on Steam. The game was well received and has a metascore of just over 80%.  The game also has a fanbase and an active community. The price of Tank Operations on Steam is expected to be around 29 EUR and of course packs will be offered inside the game.  Recently, approximately SEK 2 million was received in grants from the German state (German Gaming Fund) to launch an updated version of Tank Operations. We have just secured a publishing deal with 2tainment for Tank Operations. 2tainment will be responsible for the marketing of the game and we have a profit sharing solution with 2tainment.

Cricket Manager

Cricket Manager is our foster child and is very close to our hearts and the notion that we somehow would end our investment in Cricket Manager is incorrect. I would like to point out that the work with Cricket Manager will be intensified with the knowledge we obtain in the development work of King Royale. We see that several technical functions in King Royale are feasible to implement in Cricket Manager, above all it concerns functions that strongly contributed to strong KPIs for King Royale. Again, we have no plans to discontinue Cricket Manager, rather the plan is to, as soon as we can, free up dedicated development resources to the game. We have a limited amount of development resources within the group and can therefore only develop one game title at a time.

Rail Experience

Rail Experience is a digital training platform with gamification elements that supports the training of railway workers from the first to the third year of their apprenticeship. It is an interactive handbook that conveys teaching content in a virtual 3D environment and it can be adapted to each student.

The product is co-produced with Captrain, a leading European railway logistics company that belongs to SNCF and is a company specialized in digital training material in the railway logistics segment. To this it should be mentioned that around 4000 new railway workers are trained every year and we have aimed to reach at least 1200 of these. Our business model in this case is a monthly license per user.

AppLeMat

AppLeMat is an educational platform (Android &; iOS) for children with dyscalculia and is mainly used in a therapy context with the aim of strengthening the children's ability to assimilate mathematical knowledge.  Through mini-games inside the app, children can practice various mathematical skills. The difficulty level of these mini-games adapts to the children's abilities. The learning progress can be viewed by therapists via a web platform in real time. Through this solution, the therapists also have the opportunity to manually adjust the selection of mathematical tasks and the level of difficulty. Over a period of about six months, the children will improve steadily by solving three tasks per day, thereby counteracting their dyscalculia.  The project was commissioned by the prominent universities;  Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and the University of Würzburg. The platform is developed together with Meister Cody and will be delivered to schools in 2024.

Targets  - Summary

As mentioned above, the Wicket Group is much more than just a game. With our German subsidiary, we have taken the step into ed-tech and created a strong presence. We see a strong growth potential in ed-tech and we work actively to grow primarily on the continent. German-speaking countries are particularly close to us when we look at growing organically and through potential acquisitions.

We have several goals that we want to fulfill before the end of the year. We expect our German subsidiaries to win new assignments and thereby continue to grow organically. Within the framework of the same time period, our objective is to sign a publishing agreement for King Royale.

Our financing gives us the opportunity to seriously initiate acquisition discussions. We currently see two acquisition candidates, both of which would be strong complements to our existing business.

For further information, please contact:

Eric de Basso, VD, Wicket Gaming AB
E-post: eric@wicketgaming.com 
Phone: +46 70 780 52 00

About Wicket Gaming

Wicket Gaming is a Swedish gaming and digital education company consisting of two verticals, Games and EdTech. Within the Games vertical, the business idea is based on developing and distributing free-to-play games ("F2P") within mobile games for Android and iOS. Within EdTech, the Company focuses on developing products in genres such as Game-based Learning and Serious Games, it is in these areas that Wicket Gaming has identified the greatest synergies between the Company's two verticals.

For more information, see Wicket Gaming's website www.wicketgaming.com