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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 technology groups is starting again with a brand-new firm - and has secured the most significant preliminary investment of any British start-up business.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting wagering site FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The new firm has seed financing of $21m.
It aims to release a brand-new open source software platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting, in the very first half of next year.
The company is recruiting personnel from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was sold to Flutter - formerly called Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal conflict 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 valuation.
Mr Eccles stated that a person thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to select investors thoroughly.
He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the importance of who we choose as financiers in this brand-new company, to guarantee their worths are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary tasks responsibly, and that they're the best partners for us."
The $21m seed financing for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US technology companies, consisting of two large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in buying companies running with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting wagering industry charges high rates for poor products and limits trades by its most effective users.
"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will successfully compete against incumbents with a significantly remarkable product and low charges, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain innovation."
As chairman of the new firm, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.
'Pool of skill'
However, he says that those who use its platform to run their own wagering companies will have the ability to innovate and produce a broader variety of wagering products.
He stated the typical share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX should permit for that to fall below 1%.
The business will establish its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.
Mr Eccles stated these would take an "smart, thoughtful" technique to the way they are marketed to secure those who have a hard time with problem sports betting.
He said the team of around 500 software engineers who assisted construct FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it stays the place to build a company. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.
"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was developed on a highly competent, extremely talented engineering team, that this item that might process millions of bets and millions of users.
"There's a genuine skill pool of experienced engineers who assisted us construct our product and that's what we want to leverage for BetDEX as well."
Related topics
Edinburgh
Sports betting
More on this story
Paddy Power purchases fantasy sports betting website
23 May 2018
FanDuel founder leaves company
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Published
20 November 2017
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Sports Betting Innovator Launches new Start-up
latiabrooks945 edited this page 2025-01-02 02:29:31 +00:00