Sports betting innovator launches brand-new start-up
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17 November 2021
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By Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
One of Scotland's most successful technology teams is starting once again with a new company - and has actually secured the greatest initial investment of any British start-up business.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded dream sports betting wagering website FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The new company has seed financing of $21m.
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It intends to introduce a brand-new open source software platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting wagering, in the very first half of next year.
The company is hiring staff from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was sold to Flutter - formerly called Paddy Power in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal conflict with FanDuel's later stage investors over the way in which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh group without a share of the rising assessment.
Mr Eccles stated that one thing he discovered from the FanDuel experience was to choose financiers thoroughly.
He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the significance of who we select as investors in this new service, to ensure their values are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties responsibly, which they're the best partners for us."
The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by 7 backers of US technology firms, consisting of 2 large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing business operating with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, primary executive of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting industry charges high rates 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 significantly superior item and low fees, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology."
As chairman of the brand-new firm, 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 wagering firms will be able to innovate and produce a broader series of sports betting items.
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He stated the typical share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX ought to permit that to fall listed below 1%.
The business will establish its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.
Mr Eccles said these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" approach to the way they are marketed to protect those who struggle with issue sports betting.
He said the group of around 500 software application engineers who assisted develop FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the place to build a firm. BetDEX has the very same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.
"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely knowledgeable, very skilled engineering group, that developed this item that could process countless bets and countless users.
"There's a genuine talent swimming pool of experienced engineers who helped us develop our product which's what we wish to leverage for BetDEX too."
Related subjects
Edinburgh
Sports betting
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More on this story
Paddy Power buys dream sports betting site
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
nelsoncheesema edited this page 2025-01-02 12:38:53 +00:00