Next stops: Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne and Hamburg

HYGH AG is currently expanding its billboards from Berlin to the rest of the country - despite the corona pandemic. The founders have set themselves ambitious goals.

Fritz Frey is one of those people who prefers to look to the future rather than the past. The 25-year-old doesn't even like to talk about the initial financing of his start-up. At the time, things were quite turbulent.

Frey and his co-founders decided on a Security Token Offering (STO), in a sense a crypto-token-based crowdfunding. They were able to drum up 2,000 investors in this way, promising them a revenue share of nine percent. Such financing channels are still a rarity in cryptocurrency-shy Germany.

The fact that Frey doesn't like to talk about their financing path so much could also be due to the problems the founders had with it in 2019. In the crypto forum "coinforum", things got heated when they announced their STO. There, it hailed partly clear criticism. Some users described the start-up's offering as dubious. The STO was not an STO at all, but rather an unregulated initial coin offering (ICO). The criticism became so intense that co-founder Vincent Müller apparently felt compelled to clarify a few things there, and his post can still be read there today. The problem is that Müller did not write this statement himself, someone had impersonated him, says Fritz Frey today. That's just the way it is in these crypto forums. "We currently prefer to look to the future and want to be available with our service in all major German cities," says Frey. After all, everything turned out well.

HYGH wants to create a global network for digital outdoor advertising. They started in Berlin, and Samsung quickly became a partner. They are currently setting up digital advertising spaces in all the country's major cities. It doesn't sound very sexy at first, but digital outdoor advertising is a booming market. From 2012 to 2019, revenues for digital outdoor advertising in Germany alone rose from EUR 62 million to EUR 229 million. Despite Corona, experts expect further growth in the coming years.

HYGH can already count Netflix, Universal, Fritz Kola and food delivery service Wolt among its clients, according to founder Fritz Frey. HYGH wants to do things differently than large competitors such as Ströer. The plus points the start-up advertises are being faster, cheaper and more flexible than the competition. "For us, it was important to build a platform with which anyone can place outdoor advertising in a few minutes," he says. The startup sees itself more as a tech company and less as a marketing firm.

For example, HYGH promises on its website that it takes only five minutes from booking to campaign launch. Customers do not have to purchase prefabricated packages like those offered by other providers; they can choose exactly where their advertising should and should not appear. Hyperlocal it is to be thereby, theoretically also attractively for the baker from next door. In addition, campaigns can be pre-booked for desired time periods. Via an app, customers can adjust these again in real time whenever they like.

To do this, the start-up relies on its own stand space, but also on that of potential partners such as hotels, restaurants or stores. Those who are willing to set up a screen in their store receive a monthly "rent" from HYGH in return.

Had Corona not intervened, they would already be profitable with their concept, says Fritz Frey. "Now we're stepping on the gas as much as we can." HYGH is currently ramping up in a big way; by the end of the year, the start-up plans to set up 1,050 screens in Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg. After that, the next smaller cities are to follow.

"In the long term, we want to be represented in all of Europe's capitals," says Frey. Because he is convinced: "A lot will happen after Corona, people will then spend money again, by then we want to be represented as widely as possible."

To this end, according to the founder, another round of financing is on the horizon soon. "We plan to start with a Series A financing by the end of the year," Frey says. So this time, it will be completely classic, without crypto financing and hopefully without lively discussions in various Internet forums.