sports betting wagering 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 teams is beginning once again with a new company - and has protected the biggest preliminary investment of any British start-up business.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The new company has seed financing of $21m.
It aims to release a new open source software application platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting wagering, in the first half of next year.
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The company is recruiting personnel from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was offered to Flutter - previously called 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 phase investors over the way in which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the rising evaluation.
Mr Eccles stated that one thing he discovered from the FanDuel experience was to choose investors thoroughly.
He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the value of who we select as financiers in this new organization, to guarantee their worths are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary tasks responsibly, which they're the best partners for us."
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The $21m seed financing for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US innovation firms, consisting of two big funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing companies running with crypto-currencies.
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Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting industry charges high rates for poor products and limits trades by its most successful users.
"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will successfully contend against incumbents with a noticeably superior product and low costs, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology."
As chairman of the new company, Mr Eccles said it might look familiar to retail punters used to existing online companies.
'Pool of skill'
However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own sports betting firms will have the ability to innovate and develop a wider series of sports betting products.
He said the typical share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX needs to enable that to fall listed below 1%.
The business will develop its own wagering apps to operate on the platform.
Mr Eccles stated these would take an "smart, thoughtful" approach to the way they are marketed to safeguard those who struggle with problem gambling.
He said the group of around 500 software engineers who assisted develop FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the place to develop a firm. BetDEX has the very same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.
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"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely experienced, very gifted engineering group, that developed this product that might process millions of bets and countless users.
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"There's a real talent swimming pool of experienced engineers who helped us develop our item and that's what we wish to utilize for BetDEX too."
Related subjects
Edinburgh
sports betting wagering
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Sports Betting Innovator Launches Brand-new Start-up
angelesmattson edited this page 2025-01-01 18:19:08 +00:00