The foundations for the company were laid in 2008 when childhood friends Erik Bergman and Emil Thidell opened a web consultancy agency. During the company’s infancy, it operated from Thidell’s parent's basement before the pair decided to move to Malta in 2010.
In 2012, they decided that it would focus on lead generation for online gambling operations; from here Catena Media was founded. Catena began to rapidly expand in 2013, entering the Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish markets.
The next year, in 2014, Catena made its first acquisition when it purchased Finix Invest, a payments and investment company. The following year it continued to expand, buying out eight more companies in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium.
In the first quarter of 2017, revenue was 15.8m, a remarkable 104% year-on-year increase. This financial success led to another period of fantastic growth for the company. It acquired AskGamblers.com, a gambling specialist website, in 2016 for $17.1m – the site remains one of Catena Media’s largest assets, featuring a players complaint resolution service.
This resolution service has been noted for its efficiency: it has returned $26m of delayed, unfairly confiscated and otherwise unpaid money to over 9,873 players in total (as of 2015).
Expansion continued as Catena set its sights on major sports betting brands worldwide. It acquired i15Media in 2016, before later buying two British websites: BAT.com, a sports statistics and betting tips website, for $13.5m and CasinoUK.com, for $13.38m.
In 2017, Catena relaunched JohnSlots.com, a casino comparison site before obtaining Squawka, a football news website, for $1.3m. In the same year, the company purchased Baybets, a German iGaming affiliate. During this period of time, the company had diversified its portfolio, especially in the areas of sports and betting; this meant the PASPA repeal of 2018 was huge for Catena.
It quickly moved into Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Michigan – almost as soon as each state legalized sports betting. The company demonstrated a great propensity and infrastructure for mobilizing its brand into the US with great rapidity.
In 2022, Catena once again demonstrated its speed of integration when it entered the newly regulated New York market. It arrived with affiliate arrangements already in place with all four licensed operators in NY state and saw a highly successful launch there. Its flagship sites: LegalSportsReport.com; TheLines.com; Lineups.com; GamingToday.com; PlayNY.com and NYSportsDay.com all gained hundreds of thousands of viewers within days.
Catena’s New York launch cemented its place as a leader in the field of US gambling affiliates.
Key personnel:
Director, Sports Content (US): Brett Collson
Evergreen Content Head: Cheryle Shepstone
Company size: 500+
Locations: London, Malta, Serbia, Andover, Sydney, Las Vegas, Stockholm, Vancouver, Rome.
