Sports Betting Innovator Launches Brand-new Start-up
Sports betting innovator launches new start-up
17 November 2021
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By Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
One of Scotland’s most successful innovation groups is starting again with a brand-new firm – and has protected the greatest preliminary financial investment of any British start-up business.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting wagering website FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The new firm has seed funding of $21m.
It intends to release a brand-new open source software application platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting, in the first half of next year.
The company is hiring staff from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was offered to Flutter – formerly named Paddy Power Betfair – in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders remain in legal disagreement with FanDuel’s later stage investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the rising assessment.
Mr Eccles said that one thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to select investors thoroughly.
He told BBC Scotland: “We took a great deal of lessons from that, one of which was the importance of who we pick as financiers in this brand-new business, to guarantee their worths are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities properly, which they’re the best partners for us.”
The $21m seed financing for BetDEX includes stakes taken by seven backers of US innovation companies, including 2 large funds – Paradigm and FTX – which specialise in investing in business operating with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: “The sports betting market charges high prices for poor items and limitations trades by its most successful users.
“BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this method. We will effectively contend versus incumbents with a considerably exceptional item and low costs, which is now possible with the advent of the blockchain innovation.”
As chairman of the new company, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters used to existing online firms.
‘Pool of talent’
However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own wagering companies will be able to innovate and create a larger variety of wagering products.
He said the common share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX needs to permit that to fall below 1%.
The business will establish its own sports betting apps to operate on the platform.
Mr Eccles said these would take an “intelligent, thoughtful” method to the method they are marketed to safeguard those who have problem with problem gambling.
He stated the team of around 500 software engineers who helped develop FanDuel from Scotland showed that it remains the place to develop a firm. BetDEX has the exact same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.
“A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely proficient, very skilled engineering team, that developed this product that could process countless bets and of users.
“There’s a real skill pool of knowledgeable engineers who assisted us develop our item and that’s what we want to leverage for BetDEX also.”
Related subjects
Edinburgh
sports betting wagering
Paddy Power purchases fantasy sports betting site
23 May 2018
FanDuel founder leaves business
Published
20 November 2017
