05.03.2025 · 5 min read

Introducing iGaming Startups Series: Featuring Golden Whale Productions

Introducing iGaming Startups Series: Interview with Golden Whale Productions

At OnlyiGaming, we’re excited to bring you insights from emerging companies that are shaping the future of the iGaming industry. Today, we’re speaking with Golden Whale Productions, a cutting-edge company specializing in scalable gaming infrastructure powered by advanced machine learning and AI.

In this exclusive interview, we explore Golden Whale’s journey, innovations, challenges, and future ambitions. Here’s a closer look at what makes them a game-changer in the iGaming space.

1. Introduction

What is your company name, and what does it specialize in?
Golden Whale Productions – a company to represent the ongoing search for operational excellence and efficiency, specializing in combining scalable gaming infrastructure with advanced machine learning and AI.

Can you describe your mission in a sentence or two?
Our mission is to build the largest library of fast, highest-accuracy decision-making mechanisms for high-leverage operational decisions in User Acquisition and Retention.

2. Founding Story

When was your company founded, and by whom?
Our company was founded in early 2022 - just about 10 months before ChatGPT set off the AI craze - by Eberhard Dürrschmid, Claudia Heiling, Thomas Kolbabek, and Martin Huber. With each of us in gaming for 10-20 years and having worked together before, we decided to bring the dream team together again once more to innovate and scale technology!

What inspired you to start this company?
Eberhard Dürrschmid had been involved with early neural networks in the 90s before going on to found Greentube Group. Being a data-driven person all the way, it was a substantial motivation to see Google's AlphaFold predict protein structures from amino acid sequences. At that point, it became clear that user data would most likely provide signals strong enough to optimize almost every aspect of game operations. The uplift, in combination with the leverage the gaming business provides, made it clear that a great company could be developed!

3. Key Innovations or Products

What are your key offerings or products?
Golden Whale specializes in delivering smart machine learning-based predictions that can be used across the whole lifecycle of a player, from user acquisition to engagement. Think of:

Very Early pLTV Prediction – Fast & accurate Player Lifetime Value prediction for UA & retention
In-Session Churn Prevention – Real-time churn detection and intervention for proactive engagement
Enforcing Bonus Discipline – Early prediction of bonus abuse behavior
Fully Automated Event Trigger – Advanced retention optimization at the individual customer level
Self-Learning Campaign Optimization – Composite AI-driven retention optimization
And more!

What makes your products or services unique in the iGaming industry?
We have encountered no other combination of high-throughput tools and specific, custom-built optimization models for this growing list of use cases in the market!

4. Challenges and Achievements

What are some challenges you’ve faced as a startup, and how have you overcome them?
Privately funded by the founding team, we’ve had to stay laser-focused on our mission from the beginning. This meant gathering experienced professionals to develop the product and placing a strong emphasis on sales to obtain market feedback on our innovative approaches – we hold ourselves to high standards when it comes to sustaining innovation!

Based in Europe, we’ve been leveraging our existing network to secure our first clients. More recently, we’ve expanded our presence in the Americas and Asia, gaining our first clients there as well.

What milestones or achievements are you most proud of?
The biggest milestone so far has been proving and repeating uplifting growth in established operations by 100-200% using the methods we’ve been creating and refining over the last few years.

Additionally, we have:

Established trust and confirmation with our existing clients while generating traction with new ones.
Secured incredible talent for the company.
Developed new method combinations that display the impact of our work.
Progressed into the highly profitable field of bonus and gamification optimization.

5. Future Goals

What are your goals for the future?
We’re convinced that we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible! Our goal is to:

Continue growing our client base.
Expand our team.
Develop even broader orchestration of UA and player engagement tools – leading to combined results along the whole lifecycle of a player, multiplying gains for our clients!

Do you have any upcoming launches, partnerships, or plans for growth?
Yes! As Golden Whale’s modular solutions become increasingly integrated into the iGaming ecosystem, we’ll be announcing new partnerships soon—with operators, back-end builders, and game suppliers.

Watch our LinkedIn page for updates!

6. Founder’s Perspective

What drives your passion for iGaming?
We’ve all explored other industries but have concluded that no other industry offers a better potential for innovation, building, and scaling a new company!

On a personal level, we love the way people in our industry connect and interact with each other. We truly enjoy collaborating in-depth with so many professionals across countries and continents.

Can you share a quote or insight that reflects your company’s vision or values?
"If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough."