Sports betting innovator launches new start-up
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17 November 2021
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By Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
Among Scotland's most successful technology teams is starting once again with a new firm - and has actually secured the greatest initial investment of any British start-up business.
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BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting wagering site FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The brand-new firm has seed financing of $21m.
It intends to launch a new open source software application platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting wagering, in the first half of next year.
The company is hiring personnel from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was sold to Flutter - previously named Paddy Power - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal dispute with FanDuel's later phase financiers 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 learned from the FanDuel experience was to pick financiers thoroughly.
He told BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the value of who we choose as financiers in this new company, to guarantee their worths are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities properly, which they're the ideal partners for us."
The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by seven backers of US technology companies, including two large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing companies operating with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting industry charges high costs for poor items and limitations trades by its most successful users.
"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this technique. We will effectively contend against incumbents with a noticeably remarkable item and low costs, which is now possible with the introduction of the blockchain technology."
As chairman of the brand-new company, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.
'Pool of skill'
However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting firms will have the ability to innovate and create a larger variety of sports betting products.
He stated the normal share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX should permit for that to fall listed below 1%.
The company will develop its own wagering apps to operate on the platform.
Mr Eccles said these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" method to the way they are marketed to safeguard those who battle with issue gambling.
He stated the team of around 500 software engineers who helped construct FanDuel from Scotland showed that it stays the location to build a company. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.
"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on an extremely proficient, extremely gifted engineering team, that developed this product that could process millions of bets and countless users.
"There's a real talent pool of skilled engineers who helped us develop our product and that's what we want to leverage for BetDEX as well."
Related subjects
Edinburgh
sports betting wagering
More on this story
Paddy Power buys dream sports betting website
23 May 2018
FanDuel founder leaves business
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Published
20 November 2017
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Sports Betting Innovator Launches new Start-up
xkpstevie13070 edited this page 2025-01-02 17:43:02 +08:00