Huuuge social casino veteran unveils AI-focused Beyond startup and Decor Society

I met Anton Gauffin in Israel years ago when he was running Huuuge, a social casino game with Finnish roots and with a big presence in Poland. He had a great ride, starting up in 2014 with a seasoned team, taking the company public in 2021 and generating more than $2 billion in lifetime revenue.

Now he’s moving on to chapter two, which involves a new startup called Beyond, which is making a fashion game called Decor Society using generative AI. Right now, he’s just teasing the new business and not saying much about it, but you can guess where some of it is going.

Huuuge was a latecomer to the social casino games market, but it grabbed market share with innovations in gameplay and by targeting the unexpected market of young gamers. Huuuge refreshed the look of traditional casino games for a new generation.

“There were many who said that you are late. We were looking at the landscape at that time, and we saw a lot of room for product innovation,” Gauffin said. “We had the viewpoint that the games called themselves social casino, but they provided very limited social functionality. I think we proved them wrong.”

A decade on, the company is still worth nearly $1 billion and it is still a contender in that market.

In September 2023, Gauffin appointed Wojciech Wronowski as CEO and became executive chairman, giving up day-to-day management of a company he ran for nearly a decade. Reflecting on the success in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat, he saw the secret sauce as “being humble and hungry and having curiosity and energy to learn new all the time.”

Gauffin moved on, studied the booming generative AI market, and started the new startup Beyond, named to note he is moving beyond gaming and his past self. Social casino had its boom, but it was a niche in the market. Now he sees himself as a builder again.

“This is about having a chance to create something new that hopefully goes beyond what you’ve built so far,” Gauffin said. “For me, Beyond is all about hitting those wildest part of your imagination.”

He added, “I’m turning 46. I love creating new things. I love innovation, and I love entertainment, and I love doing it together with amazingly talented, awesome people. This is a continuation of a longer journey where I’m evolving and technology is evolving. It makes me say, ‘Wow!’”

His BeyondOS platform is powered by different AI diffusion models, and it is pointed at the market for designing home decor, much like the successful Electronic Arts game Design Home. Gauffin has assembled a team to make Decor Society as his next act.

Regarding leveraging AI, it’s going to be harder for existing companies. That’s why starting Beyond as a private company makes sense in a fast-moving market.

“I was mesmerized by the capabilities of Gen AI, and I’m surrounded with talented, amazing individuals,” Gauffin said. “I see things that used to take a massive amount of time and now they’re happening instantly.”

As for the decor space, it has been dominated by Design Home, but that product was created by Crowdstar, was acquired by Glu Mobile, which in turn was acquired by Electronic Arts. Gauffin doesn’t see much innovation in the space. And the company is addressing multiple interest verticals.

“The established apps are trying to monetize their existing audience rather than having the appetite to take bigger risks, innovate and invest,” he said. “There is a big opportunity for us to serve this audience better. We’re going to be providing hyper-personalized experiences.”

As an athlete entrepreneur, Gauffin believes in performance and he felt he wanted to create better and more capable versions of himself. The call to create something new was too hard to resist. He felt that when he started GameLion in 2002, and again in 2014 and again during the past year.

“We are at the dawn of a new AI enhanced era and the opportunity to build a next-gen AI powered entertainment platform got my attention,” Gauffin said.

In his memories of a decade at Huuuge, he recalled there were tough decisions and he had to lay off people. He became both an investor and entrepreneur. He has observed how people are spending more of their time engaging on digital platforms and how one operates in today’s reality has evolved a lot. Quality expectations continue to climb and being good is not enough.

“AI is here with us already today, this is one mega trend where the more time passes the more influential the AI impact on our society and market will be,” he said.

He said you have to embrace this change and be fast in using it to your advantage and deliver amazing results. He believes that in the era of AI, it makes sense to have a wild imagination and stretch your dreams. And he believes you have create the best team, not just the best individuals. He’s also excited about the capabilities of GenAI today and how it will grow in the next five to 10 years — and its coming impact on gaming and entertainment.

With Beyond and Decor Society, Gauffin believes that a more playable entertainment experience that looks and feels real is possible thanks to BeyondOS and how it will combine AI with the imagination of players who love interior design. It will turn their ideas, visions and passions into “hyperrealistic experiences that go way beyond static image tweaking and tuning.”

As for Decor Society, Gauffin poses the notion. “What if those images and experiences on Pinterest were composable and playable,” he said. “We are building a product that’s called Decor Society. And this will be the first release based on the BeyondOS.”

This experience will be social and bridge reality and fantasy, he said. It wouldn’t necessarily be categorized as a classic game. It’s not a foundational model, but an application layer on top.

“We have a big vision with Beyond. I do see us as an entertainment company. It’s AI meets entertainment,” he said.

Gauffin will seek out natural allies. The company is nurturing an engaged community. An open beta is not so far away.

“It’s a lot about building a team. At the end of the day, you are building team and capabilities. And the longer I’ve been in this space, the better my network has become. I have trusted and talented people to build something together,” Gauffin said. “I have had already operated as a founder for the last 10 years. So what I’ve learned is that it’s going to be a long journey to build and establish some something significant. And you have to manage your own expectations. You have to keep people excited but at the same time, if you oversell and don’t deliver, that’s not a good outcome.”

The company has 10 people now. Gauffin has invested money from his own family office, and he has investors including Play Ventures and Ilkka Teppo, the former CEO of Reworks.

As for the funk in the game industry as demand subsided after the pandemic, Gauffin saw compounding effects as people went outside and Apple focused on privacy over targeted advertising. He remains optimistic about the long-term outlook for games. But he added, “You will not be succeeding by what has already been done. You have to focus on a product and excel and innovate.”

That brings him back to thinking about “beyond games, beyond app stores.” There are new platforms arising like Telegram and the industry is evolving. Gaming takes mastery and understanding the audience, he said.

“Approaching AI as an opportunity from the entertainment point of view is the key to reach millions, if not billions of people,” he said.

With the unveiling of Beyond, Gauffin is looking for people that can help with the mission and help the company find its audience.