Ben Goldhaber, the former Co-Founder and CEO of esports social media Juked, has joined game moderation platform GGWP to assist with its marketing efforts.
The appointment follows the news that GGWP will provide free access to its moderation tools for developers. Earlier this week, the company raised $10m (~£7.77m) for its AI-based moderation platform.
Founded in 2019, Juked was a web and later mobile social media network for esports fans, which placed a focus on fostering a toxicity-free environment. However, by the end of 2022, the social media platform ceased operations after an acquisition fell through. Goldhaber, who was also on the founding team at Twitch, cited the investment environment becoming more hostile to esports startups in recent years as a reason for the Juked’s closure.
The industry veteran’s next adventure sees Goldhaber help launch GGWP’s AI moderation toolset. Created by entrepreneur Dennis Fong, former Guidewire Software CTO George Ng and Crunchyroll Co-Founder Kun Gao, GGWP aims to help combat toxicity in online games through the use of AI moderation solutions.
Prior to the additional $10m funding, which was led by Samsung Ventures and SK Telecom Ventures, the company raised $12m in 2022. In a release, GGWP highlighted that the additional funding will help the company continue working with teams ranging from AAA titles to startups.
Some of GGWP’s investors other include the likes of BITKRAFT Ventures, Riot Games, Makers Fund and Griffin Gaming Partners.
Commenting on his appointment via LinkedIn, Goldhaber stated: “As you know, fighting toxicity in gaming and esports is something I’ve been interested in for many years and I’m very glad to be able to carry this passion forward with the GGWP team.
“Today’s announcement is a huge step forward and milestone for the company as we’re launching our API making the very same tools our AAA game developer partners have been using for the last few years available to ALL developers, even studios just getting off the ground.”
The former Juked CEO also announced that while he will be helping GGWP out in the long term, he will have “more career-related news to share soon.”
