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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 effective innovation groups is beginning again with a new firm - and has actually protected the biggest initial investment of any British start-up company.

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

The brand-new company has seed funding of $21m.

It aims to release a brand-new open source software application 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 offered to Flutter - previously called Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
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However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal conflict with later phase investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the increasing appraisal.

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

He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the significance of who we choose as financiers in this brand-new service, to ensure their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary tasks responsibly, which they're the ideal partners for us."

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 buying companies running with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting industry charges high prices for poor products and limits trades by its most successful users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this method. We will effectively contend versus incumbents with a significantly remarkable item and low costs, which is now possible with the advent of the blockchain innovation."

As chairman of the new company, Mr Eccles said it might look familiar to retail punters used to existing online firms.

'Pool of talent'

However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting companies will be able to innovate and create a larger variety of sports betting products.

He stated the common share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX must allow for that to fall listed below 1%.

The business will establish its own wagering apps to operate on the platform.

Mr Eccles stated these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the way they are marketed to safeguard those who battle with problem gambling.

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

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was developed on a highly skilled, really skilled engineering group, that constructed this item that could process countless bets and countless users.

"There's a real skill swimming pool of experienced engineers who helped us develop our product and that's what we wish to utilize for BetDEX as well."

Related subjects

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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