Smarkets raises Series B funding round to supercharge international and domestic growth
LONDON, June 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Smarkets, one of the world's largest betting exchange and prediction market platforms, has announced the closing of a significant minority investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE).
Having raised just £3.8m ($5.4m) since its inception in 2008, with its Series A round coming back in 2013, Smarkets has built a leading exchange platform that processes billions of pounds in traded volume each year. The company has offices in London, Los Angeles, and Malta, licensed customer-focused operations in five countries, and in 2019 released innovative sportsbook app SBK.
Smarkets is delighted to welcome SGE, which joins existing investors Passion Capital and Deutsche Telekom in supporting the company's mission to fix betting with the fairest odds in the industry.
This new investment will allow Smarkets to accelerate its rollout in the US, where it is already live in Colorado with sportsbook app SBK and set to go live in Indiana soon. The funding will also bolster SBK's position in the UK mainstream betting market after its successful launch in August 2019.
The new investment will contribute to:
- Furthering the company's US presence, including market-access deals in new, regulated states
- Capturing an even greater share of the UK betting exchange market and accelerating SBK's growth in the UK's mainstream sportsbook market
- Expanding Smarkets' development of new products for customers and focus on industry-leading prices on sports, politics, and current affairs
- Continuing to capture the best and brightest worldwide engineering talent with a view to doubling headcount by end of 2022
- Further expansion into new and recently entered markets such as Denmark and Sweden
Jason Trost, founder and CEO of Smarkets, said:
"This is an incredibly exciting day. I've always been amazed what the passion and energy of a comparatively small group of committed people can accomplish against much bigger rivals; Smarkets and SBK are the product of exactly that. At Smarkets we have always been guided by our vision of fixing betting with the best prices and products, and SGE is just as excited as us to challenge the status quo. This is a huge endorsement of our technology and will allow us to further upend the industry by offering bets as close to fair value as possible.
"We are super proud of what we have achieved so far in the UK betting space, and this new investment will help take us to the next level and beyond in the UK, US, and other international markets. I'd like to thank the women and men that work and have worked at Smarkets for getting us to where we are.
"I truly believe the best is yet to come. This investment will allow us to fight with greater resources, move faster, and be bolder in our mission. We're so excited about the opportunities this investment unlocks."
Scott Feldman, Managing Director with Susquehanna Growth Equity, said:
"We are delighted to be able to join Smarkets on their upward journey. We immediately identified with their vision of using technology to take on the betting industry's big operators by providing the fairest odds in the world and maintaining a clear focus on product excellence.
"Smarkets have achieved a huge amount with little investment to date and we can't wait to see them go from strength to strength as they expand further into both the US and UK mainstream market."
For further information, contact press@smarkets.com. Find Smarkets company and executive photos here.
About Smarkets:
- Founded in 2008, Smarkets is an award-winning, product-focused, sports betting company headquartered in London, with offices in Los Angeles and Malta.
- It was founded by a team of finance and software engineering professionals and is backed by Passion Capital and Deutsche Telekom.
- Smarkets operates two main products - the Smarkets exchange, a sophisticated betting exchange and prediction market platform, and SBK, a sportsbook app that delivers industry-disrupting odds by drawing prices from the exchange and presenting them in a sleek, sportsbook interface.
- The Smarkets platform processes billions of pounds of traded volume each year for customers across the company's licensed and regulated markets.
About SGE:
- Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC (SGE) is an entrepreneur-centric growth equity fund with flexible capital and time horizons. SGE is exclusively focused on growth-stage internet, software, and information services companies. The firm has invested over $2bn dollars and has portfolio companies across the US, Canada, EU, and Israel. SGE is backed by a unique and patient source of capital, enabling the firm to give entrepreneurs and management teams freedom and flexibility to maximize growth. To learn more, please visit www.sgep.com.
- SGE is an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group, LLP, one of the world's largest privately-held financial institutions and a leader in the global trading and sports betting markets.
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