FanDuel
FanDuel is a web-based fantasy sports premium game created by Hubdub that falls under the banner of the relatively new Daily Fantasy Sports concept. The model consists of traditional season-long fantasy sports leagues being compressed into a daily, and occasionally weekly, game.[1]
The company currently hosts an average of 250,000 lineup entries per week into their daily games. During 2012, FanDuel paid out $50 million in daily fantasy sports prizes - up from $10 million in prizes for 2011.
Background
After taking in $1.2 million in venture capital funding from Pentech Ventures and Scottish Enterprise on January 14, 2009, Hubdub did an internal review and decided to shift focus from its web-based prediction market game to a web-based daily fantasy sports premium game.[2] On July 21, 2009, Hubdub launched FanDuel[3] while the Hubdub website was officially shut down on April 30, 2010.[4] FanDuel received $4 million venture capital funding from existing investors and Piton Capital in September of 2011[5] and currently has 44 employees stationed at offices in New York and Scotland.
On January 30th, 2013, FanDuel announced that it had closed an $11 million Series C funding round. The round included new investor Comcast Ventures (the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation), along with previous investors Piton Capital, Pentech Ventures, Bullpen Capital and serial investor Richard Koch.
Awards and Recognition
FanDuel has won numerous awards for its spin on the traditional fantasy sports model, some of which include:
• Mashable Sports Innovation Index Winner 2012
• Nominated for the Europas Best Gaming or Social Games Start Up 2013
• Scotland IS Outstanding Performance in Business Growth 2012
• Scotland IS Company of the Year 2012
• Techcrunch Best Sports and Entertainment Award 2010
• Heraldscotland.com Global Ambition Award 2010
References
- ^ DiFino, Nando. "Instant Gratification in Daily Fantasy Sports Over Traditional Leagues". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ King, Bill. "FanDuel delivers daily dose of fantasy. games". SportsBusiness Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "FanDuel turns fantasy sports betting into a social game". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "HubDub closes news site to focus on fantasy sports spinoff FanDuel". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "Daily fantasy sports FanDuel closes $4 million series B investment". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.