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A $21 million seed investment round, marking the largest-ever seed round by a UK startup, for BetDEX, is now completed.
BetDEX, the new company by former FanDuel co-founder and CEO Nigel Eccles, is set to launch in the first half of 2022. Describing itself as “the world’s first decentralized sports betting protocol,” it combines blockchain technology with sports betting, thereby looking to transform the consumer sports betting experience.
The record-setting investment round was led by San Francisco-based crypto investment firm Paradigm and Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX. Other participants included Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global Capital, Solana Ventures and Everblue Management.
Aside of Eccles, who will be BetDEX’s non-executive chair, other former FanDuel executives join in. Varun Sudhakar is appointed CEO. Stuart Tonner, the first engineer hired and key developer at FanDuel takes up the CTO role.
Operating from a base in Scotland, BetDEX will now scale the business and is hiring for a range of positions, the company announced in a press release.
BetDEX promises an entirely new perspective on the traditional sports betting market. The company explains:
“Despite the immense size, popularity and potential of the sports betting market, it has been characterized by incumbents charging high fees and delivering minimal product innovation.”
The company will take a visionary “opposite approach,” with a protocol built on public blockchain Solana. As per the press release:
“The protocol will be fully decentralized and open-sourced, allowing third parties to build their own applications and innovate on top of the platform.”
Eccles said:
“Blockchain technology is set to revolutionize sports betting and we want to be at the forefront of that.”
Citing studies that show the potential of the global sports betting market to grow to $350 billion in just a few years time, Sudhakar said:
“The sports betting industry charges high prices for poor products and limits trades by its most successful users. BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach; we will successfully compete against incumbents with a markedly superior product and low fees.”
The former FanDuel executives leading the new venture are confident to leverage their experience with FanDuel, which became Scotland’s first $1 billion dollar-valued startup before being purchased by Flutter in 2018.