sports betting wagering innovator launches brand-new start-up

17 November 2021
bit.ly
Share

close panel

Share page

Copy link

About sharing

By Douglas Fraser

Business and economy editor, Scotland

One of Scotland's most successful technology groups is starting once again with a new firm - and has secured the most significant preliminary financial investment of any British start-up business.

BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting website FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.

The new company has seed funding of $21m.
bit.ly
It intends to launch a brand-new open source software application platform, on which others can in sports betting wagering, in the first half of next year.

The company is hiring staff from a base in Scotland.

FanDuel was sold to Flutter - previously named Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.

However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders remain in legal conflict with FanDuel's later stage investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the increasing assessment.

Mr Eccles said that a person thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to pick financiers carefully.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a great deal of lessons from that, one of which was the importance of who we choose as investors in this new organization, to ensure their values are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties properly, and that they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US innovation firms, including 2 large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in buying companies operating with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting market charges high costs for bad products and limits trades by its most effective users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this technique. We will successfully contend versus incumbents with a noticeably superior product and low costs, which is now possible with the arrival of the blockchain technology."

As chairman of the brand-new firm, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.

'Pool of talent'

However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own wagering firms will be able to innovate and create a larger series of wagering products.

He said the normal share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX must permit for that to fall listed below 1%.

The business will develop its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.
bit.ly
Mr Eccles stated these would take an "smart, thoughtful" technique to the method they are marketed to secure those who deal with problem sports betting.

He stated the group of around 500 software application engineers who assisted construct FanDuel from Scotland showed that it stays the place to construct a company. BetDEX has the very same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was built on an extremely proficient, really talented engineering group, that constructed this item that might process countless bets and millions of users.
bit.ly
"There's a real skill pool of knowledgeable engineers who helped us construct our product and that's what we want to utilize for BetDEX also."

Related topics

Edinburgh

sports betting wagering

More on this story

Paddy Power purchases fantasy sports betting website

23 May 2018
bet9ja.com
FanDuel founder leaves company
bet9ja.com
Published

20 November 2017