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Interview with Francesco Maddalena – Founder at Hub Affiliations
In this interview with AffPapa, the founder of Hub Affiliations, Francesco Maddalena, shared the journey of the company, explained its operations and expansion strategies, and revealed where Hub Affiliations is headed next.
Yeva: When you look back to the early days of Hub Affiliations, what do you think helped the company get noticed so quickly?
When I look back, I think what helped Hub Affiliations get noticed so quickly was a combination of timing, execution, and a very practical founder mentality.
Hub Affiliations was officially born on 19 March 2020, in one of the most uncertain moments the world had seen in years. Looking back, I think that uncertainty shaped us in a positive way. It forced us to become practical immediately, to avoid unnecessary complexity and to focus only on what could create real value.
That period forced us to be extremely focused. There was no space for theory, no space for vanity, and no space for building something that looked good only on paper. Everything had to work immediately.
To be honest, in those early days, there was no big corporate structure behind us. There was urgency, instinct, discipline, and a very clear need to make things work. Every decision had to be useful, every relationship had to matter, and every euro had to be treated with responsibility.
And that is exactly what happened. From the first month, Hub Affiliations was cash-flow positive. For me, that was very important because it proved that the model was real. It was not just an idea, not just a presentation, and not just a long-term promise. It was a business that could create value from the beginning.
That gave us confidence, but it also gave us responsibility. When a business produces results immediately, you understand that the opportunity is real, but you also understand that you must protect it, improve it, and build around it with discipline.
I think the market noticed that. We were fast, direct, and very close to the operators, the affiliates, and the users. We had a strong performance culture, but also a strong media mentality. We understood very early that traffic alone was not enough. You needed content, trust, data, technology, and the ability to understand where value was really being created.
Another important factor was that we were founder-led from day one. I was personally involved in the details, in the relationships, in the commercial decisions, and in the execution. That makes a difference, especially in the early phase of a company. When the founders are close to the market, decisions are faster, problems are solved quicker and opportunities are not lost.
That closeness to the market became part of our culture. Even as the company grows, we never want to lose the habit of listening directly to partners, understanding problems quickly, and reacting with speed.
Later, the strategic contribution of Charles Herisson became very important for the international vision of the group. Charles brought experience across media, technology, capital raising, M&A, and international strategy. His contribution helped us connect execution with a broader strategic vision. It allowed us to look at Hub Affiliations not only as a company growing campaign by campaign, but as a platform capable of attracting partners, assets, capital, and international opportunities.
That helped us think bigger and structure Hub Affiliations not only as an affiliate company, but as a real growth platform.
So, if I had to summarise it, I would say we were noticed because we combined ambition with cash discipline, speed with responsibility, and vision with execution. Execution has always been our first technology.
Before any platform, before any automation, and before any sophisticated system, our real advantage was the ability to move fast, solve problems, and stay close to the market. That mentality is still part of our identity today.
Yeva: There are so many affiliate companies in the industry now. What did you want to do differently with Hub Affiliations when you launched it?
When we launched Hub Affiliations, I did not want to build just another affiliate company. The market already had many companies sending traffic, selling leads, or working only on short-term acquisition. I respected that model, but I felt that the future had to be different.
That model can work in the short term, but it is fragile if it is not supported by trust, data, compliance, owned media, and a real understanding of user quality.
From the beginning, I wanted Hub Affiliations to be more strategic. I wanted us to understand the full journey: how a user discovers a brand, how trust is created, how content influences decisions, how conversion happens, how retention can be improved, and how the operator receives long-term value.
For me, the difference was this: we did not want to send traffic; we wanted to help companies grow.
Traffic is a transaction. Growth is a relationship. That distinction has always been very important for us. We wanted operators to see us not only as a channel, but as a partner capable of understanding their objectives, their markets, and the quality of users they really needed.
That is why we developed Hub Affiliations around different but connected areas: affiliate marketing, media, SEO, data, AI, CRM, performance, and technology. These are not separate departments in my mind. They are parts of the same growth engine.
Over time, we built and integrated different assets in the portfolio. Sporticos.com gives us an international sports audience and strong positioning in “where to watch” and live streaming content. DerbyDerbyDerby.It gives us a strong Italian sports media identity. MilanistiChannel.com connects us with a passionate football community. Sbostats.com gives us a more data-driven and CRM-oriented layer, with funnels, coupons, and user activation tools. Punters Lounge gives us historical strength in the UK market. 123scommesse.it strengthens our Italian betting and comparison ecosystem.
Each asset has a specific role. Some assets create reach, others create authority, others create data, others support conversion, and others help us build stronger relationships with users over time. The value is not only in owning different properties, but in making them work together as one connected ecosystem.
The acquisition and development of Famacs Agency was also a key step because it strengthened our SEO, link building, digital PR, and media distribution capabilities. In this industry, visibility, authority, and search performance are not secondary. They are fundamental.
Famacs gave us an additional layer of control over visibility and authority. In a market where search, reputation, and digital presence are decisive, having stronger SEO and digital PR capabilities is a strategic advantage, not just an operational service.
Another very important step was our investment in NYCE International, a listed company, which represented one of our first strategic acquisitions and investments. For us, that was not only financial. It was a signal of how we wanted to evolve: from affiliate execution to a broader international platform connected to gaming, technology, advisory, and strategic growth.
So, what did we want to do differently? We wanted to move from a transactional affiliate model to an infrastructural growth model.
We wanted to be founder-led, technology-driven, data-oriented, and partner-focused. We wanted to build a company that could create measurable value, not just volume.
Yeva: Your company covers a lot of areas at once. Affiliate, media, AI, performance. How do they all work together in practice?
For us, they work together because they are part of the same system.
The key is that we do not look at affiliate, media, SEO, data, AI, and CRM as separate boxes.
We look at them as different parts of the same commercial journey. If one part improves, the whole system becomes stronger.
Media creates attention. Content creates trust. SEO creates continuity. Affiliate marketing creates monetisation. Data tells us what is really happening. AI gives us speed and efficiency. Performance measurement tells us what deserves to be scaled and what needs to be corrected.
This is how we think in practice.
If we look at a media asset like Sporticos.com, we do not see it only as a website. We see it as an audience platform, a data source, a content engine, and a commercial opportunity. The same is true for DerbyDerbyDerby.it, MilanistiChannel.com, 123scommesse.it, Sbostats.com, and Punters Lounge. Each asset has its own identity, audience, and role, but together they create a much stronger ecosystem.
The engineering mindset is very important here. You cannot grow only with intuition. Intuition helps you start, but systems help you scale. So we look at user behaviour, conversion paths, search visibility, CRM opportunities, operator performance, funnel efficiency, and long-term value.
The objective is to understand not only what happened, but why it happened. If we know why a user converts, why a campaign performs, why a market responds, or why a funnel loses efficiency, we can improve the system instead of simply repeating activity.
AI is becoming increasingly important because it helps us accelerate many parts of the business: content workflows, data analysis, market research, automation, internal processes, campaign optimisation, and performance monitoring.
For example, AI can help us identify content opportunities faster, analyse search trends, support CRM segmentation, improve reporting for operators, and reduce the time between insight and execution. The real value is not using AI as a slogan, but applying it to practical business problems.
But I do not see AI as something that replaces people. I see it as something that makes strong people faster and better.
The human part remains central. Relationships with operators, trust with partners, editorial judgment, compliance awareness, and commercial experience are still essential. Technology is powerful, but it has to be guided by people who understand the market.
In our industry, technology without market understanding can become noise. The strongest results come when data, automation, and AI are combined with commercial experience, editorial judgment, and responsible execution.
In practical terms, Hub Affiliations works like one connected growth engine. The media brings the audience. SEO brings sustainable visibility. Affiliate converts. CRM and data improve user value. AI increases speed. Performance tells us what works. Compliance protects the whole structure.
That is why we do not describe ourselves only as an affiliate business. We are building a tech-enabled growth ecosystem for operators and partners.
Yeva: Transparency and compliance are always emphasized among industry professionals. Do you genuinely see the industry changing, or is it still mostly talk?
I genuinely see the industry changing, but not at the same speed everywhere.
There are still companies that talk about transparency and compliance because they have to, not because they truly believe in it. But the serious part of the market has changed. Serious operators and serious affiliates now understand that transparency, data protection, information security, business continuity, anti-bribery controls, and responsible processes are no longer optional. They are becoming part of how trust is built.
For me, compliance is not a limitation. It is part of the value proposition.
A compliant company is not a slower company. It is a company that can scale with more confidence because operators, partners, and regulators can understand how value is being created.
At Hub Affiliations, we decided to invest seriously in this area because we wanted to build the company in the right way, not only grow quickly. Growth without structure is fragile. Growth with proper systems, controls, and accountability can last.
That is why we have developed a certification framework that now includes 16 certifications, covering key areas such as quality management, information security, cybersecurity controls, cloud security, privacy management, privacy impact assessment, business continuity, and anti-bribery management
These include internationally recognised standards such as ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO/IEC 27001 for information security, ISO/IEC 27002 for cybersecurity and security controls, ISO/IEC 27017 for cloud security, ISO/IEC 27701 for privacy information management, ISO/IEC 29134 for privacy impact assessments, ISO/IEC 29100 for privacy framework principles, ISO 22301 for business continuity and ISO 37001 for anti-bribery management, together with other certifications that support our operational, technical and compliance framework.
This also helps us speak the same language as serious operators. When a partner asks about data, processes, security, continuity, controls, or responsible acquisition, we do not want to answer with promises. We want to answer with systems, documentation, and evidence.
For us, these certifications are not decorations to put on a website. They are a discipline. They force us to document processes, protect data, manage risk, improve internal controls, prepare for audits, and give operators greater confidence when they work with us.
If you want to work with important operators, especially in regulated markets, you need to be able to explain where traffic comes from, how users are acquired, what kind of content they have seen, what data is being managed, what controls are in place, and whether the whole journey is responsible and traceable.
In gaming, growth must always be connected to responsibility. A good result is not only a conversion. A good result is a conversion generated through a clear, compliant, and responsible journey.
The old idea that volume is enough is disappearing.
In the past, some affiliates could win only by producing numbers. Today, the best partners need to explain the quality behind those numbers. Where did the user come from? What was the journey? Was the message responsible? Is the traffic sustainable? Is the value repeatable?
Operators want quality, retention, documentation, transparency, and long-term reliability. They want partners who can grow with them without creating regulatory, technical, or reputational problems.
This is also why our model is becoming more technical. When you manage media assets, SEO, CRM, data, AI, and performance, you also need stronger processes, stronger controls, and better visibility. Compliance becomes easier when the business is structured, measurable, and properly documented.
Of course, the industry is not perfect. There is still noise, there are still shortcuts, and there are still players who think only in the short term. But I believe the direction is clear. The market is becoming more professional.
For Hub Affiliations, this is positive. We have always believed that trust is not a detail. Trust is the infrastructure of the business. You can win one campaign with traffic, but you build a real company with trust, process, and responsibility.
Yeva: The company has been expanding in different international markets lately. Which markets are you most focused on right now and why?
Our focus is on markets where we see the right combination of growth, regulation, sports culture, operator demand, and long-term potential.
LATAM is clearly one of the most exciting regions for us. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru are very interesting because they combine strong sports passion, digital adoption, and a market that is becoming more structured.
The opportunity in LATAM is not only demographic. It is cultural, technological, and commercial. These are markets where football, mobile consumption, media influence, and operator demand can come together in a very powerful way.
With assets like Sporticos.com, we already have a strong international foundation that can support growth in these regions.
At the same time, Europe remains fundamental. Europe is more mature, more regulated, and more demanding, but that is exactly why it is important. If you can build a strong and compliant business in Europe, you build discipline. You cannot improvise. You need quality, process, and trust.
Spain is also a strategic market for us, and this is why we are now launching our new operations in Madrid to support both Spain and LATAM.
Madrid gives us something very important: proximity. Proximity to Spanish operators, proximity to talent, proximity to culture, and proximity to Latin America from a commercial and linguistic point of view.
Madrid is a natural base for this next phase. It gives us direct access to the Spanish market, but also a strong cultural and commercial bridge with Latin America. Spain has a very strong sports culture, a regulated environment, sophisticated operators, and an audience that understands both football and digital entertainment extremely well.
For us, Spain is not just another market to enter. It is becoming an operational hub.
The objective is not simply to translate what we have done elsewhere. The objective is to localise the model properly: local relationships, local content, local compliance understanding, and local commercial execution.
From Madrid, we want to build a more structured presence across Spain and use that platform to support our expansion in LATAM, especially in markets where sport, media, betting, and digital adoption are growing very quickly.
We believe there is space for a more sophisticated model: one that combines media, affiliate marketing, compliance, performance, data, and technology. That is exactly the type of model Hub Affiliations wants to bring to Spain and then scale across Spanish-speaking markets.
Italy remains very important too. It is part of our DNA, and we continue to strengthen our Italian ecosystem.
The UK is also relevant because of assets like Punters Lounge and because it is one of the most competitive and professional markets in the industry.
The UK forces you to be disciplined. It is a market where quality, compliance, brand reputation, and long-term user value matter enormously. That is why it remains important for our learning curve and our international credibility.
So, we are not expanding just to say that we are international. We are expanding where we believe we can bring real value. For us, international growth means understanding local markets, respecting regulations, adapting the model, and building partnerships that can last.
Yeva: Is there anything in the affiliate space today that you think people are massively underestimating?
Yes. I think many people are still underestimating the quality of the user.
A user is not just a number in a report. A user has a source, a motivation, a journey, a level of understanding, and a different potential value for the operator. If you ignore that, you may create volume, but you do not necessarily create value.
For many years, the affiliate industry has been obsessed with traffic, clicks, registrations, and first-time deposits. Of course, these numbers matter. But they are only the beginning of the story.
The real question is: what kind of user are you bringing to the operator? Does that user understand the product? Is the acquisition journey responsible? Does the player stay active? Is there repeat activity? Is there long-term value? Can the affiliate explain the source, the behaviour, and the quality of that traffic?
This is where I think the market is moving.
Operators are no longer interested only in volume. They want partners who can bring quality users and who can help them grow sustainably. That means better content, better segmentation, better CRM, better data, better compliance, and better technology.
I also think people underestimate retention. Acquisition is important, but the future of affiliate marketing is not only acquisition.
The affiliate that understands retention becomes more valuable to the operator. If you can help create users who return, engage, trust the product, and generate long-term value, you are no longer only an acquisition channel. You become part of the operator’s growth strategy.
It is the full player journey: awareness, trust, conversion, activation, retention, reactivation, and loyalty.
That is why assets like Sbostats.com are important for us. They allow us to think beyond the click and beyond the first conversion. They help us understand the user journey in a more intelligent way.
Another underestimated area is ownership of media and distribution.
Owned distribution gives a company strategic independence. It allows you to build authority over time, reduce dependency on short-term paid channels, and create a direct relationship with audiences that competitors cannot simply buy overnight.
If you depend only on paid traffic or short-term campaigns, you are fragile. But if you build media assets, communities, SEO authority, and data capabilities, you create something more defensible.
So, for me, the most underestimated things are quality, trust, retention, data, and owned distribution. The future of affiliate marketing is not volume alone. It is quality, technology, and long-term value.
Yeva: What motivates you most today compared to when you first launched Hub Affiliations back in 2020?
At the beginning, the motivation was to build something from zero and prove that we could compete.
There was a lot of energy in that phase, but also a lot of pressure. When you start from zero, you cannot hide behind structure. You have to earn trust one conversation, one campaign, and one result at a time.
In the first phase, every result mattered. Every partner, every campaign, every improvement, and every mistake taught us something. I am very grateful for that period because it created the culture of the company.
Today, the motivation is different. It is not only about proving that we can compete. Today, it is about building something that lasts.
That is a very different kind of motivation. It is less about proving people wrong and more about proving that the company can become stronger, more structured, and more useful to everyone around it.
I am motivated by the team, by the partners who trust us, by the possibility of helping operators grow, and by the idea that Hub Affiliations can become a serious international platform with a strong technology identity.
The next phase is even more exciting because we are no longer thinking only about growth in one market. We are thinking about geographical expansion, stronger international operations, and a more structured presence across Europe, LATAM, and other strategic regions.
I am also very motivated by continuous innovation. The affiliate industry is changing quickly, and we want to be one of the companies that help define the next stage, not simply follow it. AI, data, automation, CRM, media intelligence, and performance technology are becoming essential parts of how we work and how we create value for operators.
Another important motivation is the growth of our business development team. A company can have good technology and good assets, but it still needs people who understand relationships, markets, and execution. We are building a stronger commercial structure, with people capable of opening doors, managing complex partnerships, and representing Hub Affiliations internationally.
And finally, I am motivated by the quality of the partnerships we are developing. We do not want to grow with everyone at any cost. We want to work with high-quality operators, high-quality media partners, high-quality technology partners, and people who share a serious long-term vision.
So, if the first motivation was to prove that we could build something, today the motivation is to scale it properly: geographically, technologically, commercially, and culturally.
That is what makes this phase so meaningful for me. We are no longer only building a company; we are building a platform, a team, a culture, and an international story that can continue beyond the first generation of growth.
Yeva: A few years from now, what would make you look at Hub Affiliations and think, “yeah, we did it right”?
I would say “we did it right” if, a few years from now, Hub Affiliations is recognised not just as an affiliate company, but as a strategic growth partner for the companies inside our ecosystem.
That would mean that the market understood the real direction of the company. We are not trying to be bigger only for the sake of being bigger. We are trying to become more useful, more reliable, and more capable of creating value across the full growth journey.
For me, success is not only about revenue, although of course revenue matters. Success means building a company that creates value in a sustainable, responsible, and measurable way. It means our partners trust us. It means users are acquired responsibly. It means operators see us as a partner that can help them grow, not only as a source of traffic. It means our team is proud of what we are building.
I would be proud if Hub Affiliations becomes stronger internationally, with a real presence across key markets, stronger operations, better technology, better data, and a more complete commercial structure. I want the company to become a platform capable of supporting growth across different countries, different verticals, and different types of partners.
Another very important part of our future is acquisitions. We do not want to grow only organically. We want to grow through qualified acquisitions that can complete and improve our offer.
The word “qualified” is very important. We are not interested in buying companies just to add names to a portfolio. We are interested in companies that bring a real capability, a strong team, a valuable audience, a technological advantage, or a strategic position that can make the whole group stronger.
We are interested in companies that bring technology, media, data, performance capabilities, communities, products, or strategic know-how that can make the whole group stronger.
For us, acquisitions are not just financial transactions. They are a way to accelerate the ecosystem. If we acquire a company, the objective is not simply to own it. The objective is to integrate it, improve it, and give it access to our network, our operators, our technology, our business development team, and our international vision.
We want to build, acquire, integrate, and grow companies with a strong technology and performance culture.
But I also believe that the way we grow matters as much as the growth itself. We want Hub Affiliations to be a company with strong values: inclusion, responsibility, ESG awareness, and continuous education. For me, a modern company cannot only speak about performance. It must also invest in people, in culture, in training, and in the quality of the environment it creates.
I would be especially happy if the people who collaborate with us grow together with the company. A business is not only made of numbers, contracts, and platforms. It is made of people.
Numbers tell you if the business is working. People tell you if the business has a future.
If the people around us become stronger, more skilled, more confident, and more successful because they were part of Hub Affiliations, then that is one of the clearest signs that we did something right.
Training is very important for us. The industry changes quickly, so our people need to keep learning: technology, AI, compliance, commercial skills, leadership, data, communication, and international business. I want Hub Affiliations to be a place where talent is not only used, but also developed.
The same is true for the companies in which we are investing. If, in a few years, we can look at those companies and say that they are stronger, more professional, more technological, and more sustainable because they became part of our ecosystem, then that will mean we are moving in the right direction.
But emotionally, the answer is simple. I will say “we did it right” if we grow without losing who we are.
We are founder-led. We are practical. We are hungry. We are grateful. We like numbers, but we also believe in people. We believe in technology, but we also believe in trust. We believe in performance, but we also believe in responsibility.
The real challenge is to scale without becoming cold, to become more structured without becoming slow, and to become more international without losing the founder mentality that made the company successful in the first place.
If, in a few years, Hub Affiliations is bigger, more international, more tech-driven, and more respected, but still has the same speed, humility, responsibility, inclusion, and human energy that we had on day one, then yes, I will be able to say that we did it right.
Because growth is only meaningful if it does not make you forget why you started.
Company: Hub Affiliations
Interviewee: Francesco Maddalena
Date: 29.05.2026
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