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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 successful technology teams is starting again with a - and has secured the most significant preliminary financial investment of any British start-up company.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded dream sports betting website FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The brand-new company has seed funding of $21m.
It intends to release a new open source software platform, on which others can innovate 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 phase financiers over the method in which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh group without a share of the rising valuation.
Mr Eccles said that a person thing he learned from the FanDuel experience was to choose investors thoroughly.
He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the value of who we choose as investors in this new business, to ensure their values are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties properly, and that they're the right partners for us."
The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by seven backers of US innovation companies, consisting of 2 large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing business operating with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, chief executive of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting wagering industry charges high rates for bad items and limitations trades by its most successful users.
"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will successfully contend versus incumbents with a noticeably exceptional item and low charges, which is now possible with the introduction of the blockchain technology."
As chairman of the new firm, Mr Eccles stated it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.
'Pool of talent'
However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting firms will have the ability to innovate and develop a broader range of sports betting items.
He said the common share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX must enable that to fall below 1%.
The business will develop its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.
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Mr Eccles stated these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the method they are marketed to protect those who struggle with problem sports betting.
He said the group of around 500 software application engineers who helped build FanDuel from Scotland showed that it stays the place to construct a company. BetDEX has the same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.
"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on an extremely competent, really gifted engineering group, that developed this product that might process countless bets and millions of users.
"There's a real skill swimming pool of experienced engineers who helped us develop our item which's what we wish to leverage for BetDEX as well."
Related topics
Edinburgh
sports betting wagering
More on this story
Paddy Power purchases dream sports betting website
23 May 2018
FanDuel founder leaves company
Published
20 November 2017
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Sports Betting Innovator Launches new Start up
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