Firy Inc.
Moat Score — Firy Inc.
Total Moat Score
11 / 30
| Moat Factor | Score | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Intangible Assets Patents, trademarks, brand strength, or regulatory licenses that protect a company's products or services from being freely copied by competitors. | 3 / 5 | Firy (formerly Skillz) holds 90 granted patents and 112 pending covering matchmaking and anti-cheat technology, and has actually enforced them, winning a $42.9 million jury verdict against AviaGames for patent infringement and an approximately $420 million judgment against Papaya Gaming over bot-driven fraud, giving the IP real demonstrated teeth rather than theoretical value. |
| Cost Advantage A durable ability to produce goods or services more cheaply than competitors — through scale, unique access to cheap inputs, location, or process — that lets a company undercut rivals or out-earn them at the same price. | 0 / 5 | The company has no structural cost advantage: it posted a $70.4 million net loss and a $50.5 million Adjusted EBITDA loss in 2025, and operating expenses of $162.9 million exceeded gross profit of $91.4 million, indicating a cost structure that is still a drag rather than an edge. |
| Pricing Power The ability to raise prices without losing meaningful business, because the product or service is differentiated, mission-critical, or has few good substitutes. | 1 / 5 | Firy sets the take rate it keeps from pooled player entry fees, but GMV fell to $541.9 million in 2025 from $608.2 million in 2024 even as revenue rose, suggesting any pricing power is being exercised against a shrinking wagering base rather than reflecting durable leverage over developers or players. |
| Network Effect The product or service becomes more valuable to every user as more people or organizations use it, making an established leader harder to displace. | 3 / 5 | As a two-sided marketplace, a larger pool of players on the Skillz platform improves matchmaking speed and fairness across skill tiers, which attracts more developers to integrate the SDK; this is a real, functioning network effect, though it is narrower than effects seen in dominant social or marketplace platforms. |
| Switching Costs The money, time, or operational disruption a customer would face switching to a competitor, which locks in existing customers and supports renewals. | 2 / 5 | The Ticketz loyalty currency (redeemable in-app or convertible to Bonus Cash) and developers' integration of the Skillz SDK for matchmaking, anti-cheat, and payments create real but moderate switching friction for both players and developers, not the high lock-in seen in enterprise software. |
| Efficient Scale A market that can only profitably support a small number of players, so incumbents face limited threat from new entrants even without other defenses. | 2 / 5 | Real-money skill-based mobile gaming is a regulated, relatively narrow niche where only a handful of credible platforms (Skillz/Firy, AviaGames, Papaya Gaming) operate at scale, but the segment is still contested enough -- and litigious enough between the few incumbents -- that it does not reach a true efficient-scale moat. |