sports betting wagering 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

Among Scotland's most effective innovation teams is beginning once again with a brand-new company - and has actually protected the biggest preliminary financial 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 brand-new company has seed financing of $21m.

It aims 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 business is hiring personnel from a base in Scotland.

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

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

Mr Eccles said that one thing he learned from the FanDuel experience was to pick financiers carefully.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the significance of who we select as financiers in this new organization, to ensure their worths are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties responsibly, and that they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by seven backers of US technology firms, including 2 large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing companies running with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, of BetDEX, stated: "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 complete against incumbents with a markedly remarkable item and low charges, which is now possible with the advent of the blockchain innovation."

As chairman of the brand-new company, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters used to existing online companies.
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'Pool of talent'

However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own sports betting companies will have the ability to innovate and create a larger variety of wagering items.

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

The company will develop its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.

Mr Eccles said these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the method they are marketed to protect those who battle with problem gaming.

He said the team of around 500 software engineers who helped develop FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the location to build a company. BetDEX has the very same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on a highly proficient, extremely talented engineering team, that constructed this item that might process countless bets and countless users.

"There's a real skill pool of knowledgeable engineers who helped us build our item and that's what we wish to take advantage of for BetDEX too."

Related topics

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

Published

20 November 2017
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