End Of An Era
GeoComply’s David Briggs discusses the sixth and final Challenger Series event that will take place on the opening day of G2E 2025.
This is a sponsored post from GeoComply.
The GeoComply Challenger Series is a must-attend conference event, and the best part about it is that it is free: Click here to register. If you’re planning on waiting for the next one, it might be a while, as the upcoming event in Las Vegas (which will take place on the first day of G2E) is the final installment.
In this sponsored post, GeoComply cofounder David Briggs talks about the history of the Challenger Series, what it uniquely offers to founders in the gambling space, and why it’s coming to an end — but may return in a different form down the road.
SPONSOR’S MESSAGE: Are you a founder trying to navigate the brutal realities of building and scaling a business? Hear straight from the people who’ve been through the wringer, so you don't have to.
This invite-only, final edition of the Challenger Series in Las Vegas brings together some of the most influential founders and leaders you won’t normally see on a conference panel. No fluff. No PR spin. Just real lessons from industry giants.
Let's go back to the very beginning. What was the initial spark or the core problem you and Citi were trying to solve when you first conceived of the Challenger Series?
I think for us, the major issue that we felt needed to be addressed with Challenger was that, as a founder, you know a lot about your product, your market, or your technology, and you're really passionate about it and really good at it.
Invariably, founders end up having to raise money, and they end up dealing with institutional investors, private equity, or VC. Then suddenly, you have to be really good at dealing with something you've never dealt with before. How to draft up a shareholders' agreement, how to deal with what kind of share types you want, common equity, preferred equity, who do you want to have in your cap table, how do you contract with these investors, what valuation should you have, what are the terms and conditions that go into these shareholders' agreements.
For many founders, they're on the wrong side of a knowledge arbitrage—an imbalance where investors know all about these transactions, but the founders themselves are often vulnerable. And many investors present themselves as friends to founders. They're there to help you. They're there to grow the business. And the reality is very, very unlikely to be like that.
As a founder, being at such a disadvantage from a knowledge perspective is something we wanted to address through insights from previous founders who've been there and done that, having experienced it firsthand.
So that knowledge arbitrage imbalance is not quite as severe as it could be, and the next generation of founders has the best skills, experience, and insights to help them deal with the process you go through as you raise money and deal with investors.
From your perspective, why was the partnership between GeoComply and Citi so crucial for bringing this to life?
I was at G2E, and I bumped into Andrew Fabian from Citi. Since PASPA was struck down in 2018, a new generation of people has emerged in and around the online betting and gaming space. We believed there was an opportunity for us to create something that would welcome these new talents and backgrounds into the industry, while also providing them with a chance to benefit from our expertise. We felt that, from Citi's perspective and from our perspective at GeoComply, as former founders ourselves, we had something to offer that could help the next generation.
Thinking back to those early discussions, what's one prediction you had that came true in a way that surprised you, and what's one that was completely off the mark?
I think we were quite right to identify that there was a growing emergence of new companies and new verticals in the iGaming space. Whether sweepstakes, DFS 2.0, Pick 'em, or even prediction markets. There's an incredible proliferation of “gaming adjacent” verticals that have been created.
They're all at this interesting friction point between how they meet the existing legal and regulatory framework, and how that framework adapts to allow them to continue operating or prevents them from doing so. And I think we were right to spot that early on, and I think the speakers that we've had come and speak represent the companies that have grown incredibly quickly and have become kind of household names across a large chunk of the US market.
How have you seen the community and the connections evolve over the years?
I would say that I've seen really good relationships come out of Challenger. I think the coexistence between the previous generation of founders, some of whom are now, you know, the C-suite of companies that have grown very large. I think they met a few folks from the emerging gaming space and built relationships there that I think wouldn't have happened otherwise. And I think the bridge between the existing regulated gaming space and the adjacent gaming space is a very important one.
What do you think the future holds for this community? What's your biggest hope for it?
One thing I have really enjoyed seeing since we did the first Challenger is how the original desire to ensure that founders have access to knowledge from previous founders has evolved. This way, new founders would be forewarned and forearmed as they entered their own conversations, such as acquisitions, sales, and investments.
And when I look at the conference tracks happening across the rest of the industry, I now see that they have tracks that focus on stories from founders. And I think seeing conference programming change so that there aren't just these meaningless panels of people that are paid to be there talking absolute nonsense, and audiences that are bored just waiting for the networking event, seeing that move away and turn to panels that are genuinely interesting about founders telling their story and the challenges.
And one of the reasons why I'm kind of okay if we make this the last Challenger event is because that goal of Challenger, I feel, is now proliferated across many of the conferences…and I think that's a really positive thing.
Looking ahead to the next Challenger Series event, what's the one thing you're most excited about that will be different from what we've done before?
Every Challenger is different. We always try to get genuinely interesting speakers to talk honestly about their experiences in a way that's useful to the audience. I think this Challenger, being the last one in the current format, will really focus on what the key lessons are for the founder community to know as they enter what is going to be a very exciting future in 2025.
The gaming industry right now has never been through such a period of uncertain legal, regulatory, and taxation framework. Marketing costs are higher, and the pressure for profitability is higher than it's ever been.
There will be enormous opportunities, but also enormous challenges ahead. And if you are starting a business now or trying to get it to critical mass, I think the decisions you make over the next six months are going to be very important about whether you're going to make it or not.
What we're going to try to do with the speakers this time around is really focus on that existential moment in a startup, founder, or high-growth company's life, where they need to get the next question answered exactly right. If they get through this next obstacle, they're going to make it. If they don't, they're not.
And I think right now, where the sector is, kind of reflects that period in time where there are whole industries that are against sweeps or predictions that are facing these existential binary futures. But it's a very, very fluid environment right now. And I think the next Challenger is going to be really focused on helping folks determine what the most important decision is for them to make to get through this period successfully.
For someone who hasn’t been to a Challenger event before, what's the number one reason they can't miss this one?
I think if you're a founder and you've never been to a Challenger, obviously, you missed out a bit, but at least come to one. Because even going to one Challenger, even if it's the final one, I would be astonished if everyone didn't get a lot from it.
The relationships that we built, the connections we built, the content that we're programming is the kind of stuff you're only ever going to hear in one place ever, and it's only going to happen once. Invariably, the people you go to conferences and listen to are the ones who always go and speak at conferences. The thing with Challenger is that we get people who never speak to speak. At this next event, we will really focus on that. Don't miss it.
And finally, what's your message to the entire community as we count down to the event?
For everyone who's been to a Challenger, I really look forward to seeing you again. I know that there's a lot of pressure for us to make the final one the best one yet. It is going to be really good.
But generally speaking, for those coming for the first time, you're going to have a great event, and I really want to ensure we give the Challenger conference the best possible send-off we can.
See you there.