FANDUEL, the Edinburgh-based fantasy sports specialist, has continued its acquisition spree by snapping up leading eSports provider AlphaDraft in the US.
The deal marks the company’s first foray into the world of eSports, a gaming genre which involves players competing against each other in real time, often viewed by an audience.
It is the third to be sealed by FanDuel in as many months, following a $275 million funding injection secured by the business to fund its expansion plans in July.
That took to $363m the total raised by the company in Series E financing, which has brought backing from various NFL and NBA teams, as well as the likes of Shamrock Capital, NBC Sports Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Pentech Ventures and Piton Capital.
The backing, led by heavy hitters such as private equity giant KKR, Google Capital and Time Warner Investments with Turner Sports, helped FanDuel acquire Edinburgh-based mobile app developer Kotikan in July.
The “unicorn” business followed that with the acquisition of US sports analytics platform numberFire last month.
FanDuel, credited with pioneering daily play in the massive US fantasy sports market, highlighted the opportunity to introduce further sports tech talent to its team, expand its product offer and reach new customers as attractions of the AlphaDraft deal.
The company noted there is little overlap between the demographic of traditional sports fans and the estimated 200 million-plus audience which participate on eSports platforms.
Players who engaged on the AlphaDraft platform, which is said to “seamlessly” blend eSports, live streaming and fantasy sports, take part in daily and weekly contests for cash and other “real world” prizes. FanDuel noted that members can draft a new team every day without having to commit for a season, and play against friends and other fans without having to create their own fantasy leagues.
The eSports market is believed to have generated $612m in revenue last year, with 13 per cent of all live stream viewers estimated to be watching eSports. By 2017, it is projected that the number of eSports fans will be close to that of American football.
FanDuel co-founder Nigel Eccles said: “With over 200 million people globally watching eSports, AlphaDraft gives those fans a way to engage with this burgeoning entertainment product that creates an enormous opportunity for us.
“This is sports for a new demographic, with very little crossover with what are considered traditional sports fans, and this acquisition gives us the ability to leverage the expertise of AlphaDraft’s team, while helping their efforts in customer acquisition and building awareness of this new industry.
“It’s a win-win.”
Todd Peterson, chief executive of AlphaDraft, which was founded last year and has 10 staff, said: “It is clear that FanDuel is committed to the fan community.
“This pairing creates an incredible opportunity to drive the fantasy industry forward and create compelling products that will enhance all fan engagement.”
In spite of its exclusive focus, to date, on the US market, FanDuel is a major employer in Scotland.
It recently augmented its Edinburgh base with a new office in Glasgow, where it anticipates building a team of around 200 software specialists.
FanDuel now employs a total of 480 staff following its latest acquisition.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here