BetDEX has raised a $21 million seed round with the goal of creating a decentralized global sports betting protocol. The company called this the “largest-ever seed investment round by a UK startup.”
Crypto exchange FTX and San Francisco-based crypto venture firm Paradigm were the ones leading the round. Other important names taking part were Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global Capital, and Solana Ventures.
BetDEX is building its protocol on the Solana blockchain and it wants to become “a global clearinghouse for sports wagering,” as it was revealed in a blog post.
Third parties will have the option of using BetDEX’s back-end infrastructure to run their betting platforms which should be an advantage taking into consideration the high transaction speed and low fees that Solana enjoys.
According to BetDEC, it will charge a fee of less than 1% on net winnings, which should give it an edge over the competition – DraftKings or FanDuel usually charge around 2 – 5%%.
The company also wants to create its own betting platform on the protocol, although a name for it hasn’t been confirmed yet. BetDEX will accept wagers in SOL, SAMO, and USDT, for the moment.
In charge of the company are three former FanDuel executives, which hold 36% of the current online sports betting market share. Nigel Eccless co-founded FanDuel and was its CEO, while now he is a non-executive chair for BetDEX.
As the US crypto betting market is just only getting started, BetDEX will focus more on Europe and Asia, according to a spokesperson for the company. As of now, the only US state where crypto sports betting is legal is Wyoming.
The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried declared:
“It is mind-boggling that more sports wagering does not occur on exchanges. We firmly believe in giving consumers the ability and control to set their own price and are excited to partner with BetDEX to bring this vision to fruition.”