We are excited to formally announce the relaunch of Loft’s long standing platform, Matchbox, as Loft Platform. Read the announcement by Loft founder and CEO Nick Nettleton…
Today, I am really excited to announce the relaunch of our long standing technology platform, Matchbox, as Loft Platform.
This is much more than a change of name. It’s the product of over sixteen years’ experience building fast, scalable, complex digital platforms for clients around the world. We have re-engineered it from the ground up to meet our clients’ needs, to build the best modern digital platforms at speed.
I will add some context.
What is Matchbox?
I developed Matchbox in the earliest days of Loft as a content management system that quickly expanded into ecommerce and bespoke applications as our company grew.
It was built on the principles of being fast, flexible, powerful and yet easy to work with, whoever you are – manager, designer, developer, end user. It came from my own experiences creating and managing high traffic websites, and the inherent challenges in this work.
It was hugely successful. Many Loft clients have used Matchbox to underpin the digital properties we created for them – Cyclescheme, PwC, Grant Thornton to name just a few. Some have grown very fast indeed. Matchbox has played a pivotal role in their success, by enabling us to develop their technology at lightning speed, yet on sound foundations.
It’s a model that really works.
Why Loft Platform?
Over time our focus as a business has moved more and more towards building bespoke digital platforms for our clients. We wanted to overhaul and modernise the Matchbox platform concept to make it more relevant to the needs of this work.
Over the last two years we have redesigned all the interfaces, and rewritten the code, to do exactly this, resulting in a platform that our clients can use to quickly build and grow their own unique digital platforms on top of. It incorporates the learnings from our years of experience developing such platforms, enabling our clients to have the best from day one.
By renaming it Loft Platform, we bring it into the heart of the Loft brand, a central part of our promise to help clients grow faster by bringing our technology as well as expertise to their business.
What does Loft Platform do?
While there are key features that make each digital platform unique, many of the underlying patterns and work that needs to be done for a modern digital platform are common.
For example, most need an architecture that enables many different interfaces (human and computer) to be delivered from the same underlying data and business process logic. Most need to integrate with a wide range of third party platforms. Most need a flexible data model that puts the user at the centre, together with somewhere for users to sign in to see and manage their information. This brings identity, security, compliance and audit requirements, but in turn enables user data to be integrated across systems, delivering brilliant customer experiences and efficient working processes.
Modern platforms need the flexibility to integrate with many other third party platforms, so new features can be incorporated, work automated, and business partnerships built on efficient foundations. Accelerating the flow of data – and for many, building datasets for AI – are vital.
Loft Platform provides a pre-existing technology foundation for this work, so we can start work on the features that make a project unique on day one; deliver a prototype in a few days to a week; and a production grade platform within weeks to months.
It is tried and tested, flexible, scalable, and built on open standards, so it works out of the box and can grow in whichever direction a project needs. Its interfaces and logic are fully customisable, so it can be branded and adapted to deliver whatever user experience a project needs.
You can read about the current features here.
Who is it for?
Loft Platform is suitable for organisations of any size, from startup to enterprise and government, and has been used on production systems in all these contexts.
What can I use it for?
Loft Platform can be used to quickly develop many types of digital platform: web and mobile applications, customer and staff portals, data and automation hubs, to name a few. They all have similar underlying technology needs and patterns.
How can I use it?
In the first instance, please reach out to us to discuss your project or challenge, and how we can use Loft Platform to help your business.
We provide it to clients as part of a project, and we can enable your internal teams and other developers to work with it in your business too.
