Sports betting innovator launches brand-new start-up


17 November 2021


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By Douglas Fraser


Business and economy editor, Scotland


Among Scotland's most successful innovation groups is starting once again with a new company - and has protected the most significant initial financial investment of any British start-up business.


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


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


It intends to release a new open source software platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting, in the very first half of next year.


The business is hiring personnel 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 are in legal dispute 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 appraisal.


Mr Eccles said that one thing he discovered from the FanDuel experience was to pick investors thoroughly.


He told BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the value of who we choose as investors in this brand-new company, to guarantee their worths are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities properly, which they're the right partners for us."


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




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


"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this method. We will successfully contend against incumbents with a noticeably remarkable item and low charges, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology."


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


'Pool of talent'


However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own wagering firms will have the ability to innovate and create a wider series of wagering products.


He stated 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 wagering apps to run on the platform.


Mr Eccles said these would take an "smart, thoughtful" method to the method they are marketed to protect those who deal with problem gambling.


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


"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely proficient, very skilled engineering team, that built this item that could process countless bets and millions of users.


"There's a genuine talent swimming pool of skilled engineers who assisted us develop our product and that's what we want to utilize for BetDEX as well."


Related subjects


Edinburgh


Sports betting


More on this story


Paddy Power buys fantasy sports betting website


23 May 2018


FanDuel founder leaves company


Published


20 November 2017