With the acquisition of APEX Hostings, FLEX Capital’s portfolio company Nitrado brings together two of the largest providers in the game server hosting industry under one roof. In an interview with Peter Waleczek, Managing Partner of FLEX, APEX Co-Founder Seth Mattox highlights the benefits of APEX and discusses the successful collaboration with Nitrado.
Seth, since APEX was recently acquired by one of FLEX Capital’s portfolio companies, Nitrado, I’m excited to talk to you today. Please introduce yourself briefly. Who are you, and what do you do?
Seth: My name is Seth Mattox, and I’m one of the co-founders of APEX Hosting. Primarily, I’m a frontend web developer, but over the past decade, I’ve been primarily an entrepreneur. Alongside my childhood friend John Rendemonti, we co-founded APEX Hosting in 2013. Initially, we were involved in developing websites for other individuals and businesses. Then, we shifted our focus to our own projects, including the development of a gaming chair. Over time, we evolved into one of the oldest and largest game server hosting companies in the world, with a strong emphasis on Minecraft.
How did you come up with the idea of APEX?
Seth: APEX Hostings is the world’s largest hosting company for Minecraft servers. Our primary focus is on providing high-quality educational content. When we founded APEX, we recognized a significant gap between the technical requirements of running a Minecraft server on one hand and the educational resources available for server management on the other.
As a solution, we introduced the world’s first 24/7 live chat support to assist users. We’ve also created one of the world’s largest video documentation libraries for setting up Minecraft servers and related game types. Furthermore, we’ve trained a team of employees working in three shifts around the clock, capable of providing support in both English and Spanish, to offer the best possible assistance to users of these systems. In essence, over the last 8 years, we’ve successfully optimized our servers to a very high and stable level, reducing everyday user issues.
What does APEX do?
Seth: My business partner and I have gone through various phases to become the individuals we are today and make APEX the success it is.
It was around years 3 to 5 of our development cycle when we primarily focused on APEX Hostings. At that time, we had gained significant expertise from our gaming chair branding, allowing us to redefine and adapt APEX’s direction. We experienced growth of approximately 300 percent over multiple years. Then, suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic entered our lives, and global interest in gaming grew exponentially. Fortunately, we had already invested considerable efforts in SEO marketing before the crisis, leading to numerous online searches related to COVID.
Now, two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, APEX is undisputedly the world’s largest Minecraft hosting company. This development and status have subsequently led us to Nitrado. We have so much more in store for the future.
What are the next steps on the agenda?
Seth: Currently, we are working on several games, using software called Docker. This software allows us to segment our game servers and offer multiple different games on the same server. The APEX team, consisting of 47 employees, is brilliant, and it’s impressive to witness the progress with Docker.
As a result, we have released new games, such as Arc. This game is quite demanding, and it was one of the key factors in our collaboration with Nitrado. While APEX has done great work with Minecraft, we have another 100 games that we want to bring to the market. Given the resources and expertise required for these next steps, we needed a strategic partner.
As an example, while our dev team consists of 9 individuals, Nitrado has over 40 dev employees. While we are in the process of launching games other than Minecraft for the first time, Nitrado has already hosted more than 100 games. Nitrado has entered the B2B phase and made a successful foray into the B2C hosting sector. Ultimately, Nitrado has the hardware that APEX urgently needs, as we are currently renting it.
In summary, this collaboration with Nitrado appears to be a match made in heaven, and there is no better partnership in the world than the one with Nitrado.
This collaboration with Nitrado seems like a heavenly match, and there is no better partnership in the world than the one with Nitrado.
You have been an independent entrepreneur for ten years. How does it feel to suddenly have an external partner like Nitrado?
Seth: Entrepreneurs, in general, don’t like being told what to do. However, at APEX, we don’t view Nitrado as our boss. Besides their relatively hands-off approach, we see this partnership more as a kind of boot camp for APEX. For us, it’s a process that takes us from a bootstrapped startup environment to an enterprise-level one. Games are our business, so personally, I’m trying to evaluate this next step with Nitrado as part of the game. I hope that we can build Nitrado and APEX into a unified and larger brand over the coming years.
Entrepreneurs, in general, don’t like being told what to do.
What is your favorite game?
Seth: Currently, I love playing Minecraft together with my fiancée. Since she has never played the game before, it’s exciting to introduce her to this world that I created and know so well for over 9 years. With my other friends, I play Diablo II, Minecraft Dungeons, and as a “Guilty Pleasure,” I enjoy playing on the Xbox.
Peter: Wonderful. Thank you for your time and the interview.
Seth: Thank you very much, Peter. I enjoyed talking with you.
