PickGuru
- Sports betting startup received pre-money valuation of UK£6m
- Marshmallow and Paddy Power among new platform’s early investors
PickGuru, a new social gambling platform which is set to launch in early 2022, has raised UK£2.6 million (US$3.5 million) in an initial seed funding round.
Founded by Oliver Slipper, the co-founder of sports data and analytics platform Stats Perform, PickGuru will allow friends to challenge each other in sports predictions games for cash prizes using live betting data feeds.
Slipper says that PickGuru originated from a manual spreadsheet on which friends placed bets during the 2020 Masters golf tournament. The platform received a pre-money valuation of UK£6 million (US$8 million).
The gaming startup is planning for users to be able to compete in numerous sports prediction games across its platform, in either nationwide leagues or mini-leagues among friends.
Among the company’s founding members are Paul Cobley, the founder of Matulo Software, and Paul Watkins, the former financial planning and analysis partner at Stats Perform.
Early investors include Paddy Power, Global Cycling Network founder and chairman Simon Wear, Grabyo founder Will Neale and Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham, co-founders of Marshmallow.
“I certainly didn’t expect things to take off less than a year after sending out a simple game to friends but the massive popularity of it convinced me that I was onto something,” Slipper said.
“Following months of hard graft and huge investment, we’re proud to be building the first UK-focused platform that uniquely combines elements of fantasy sports, gaming and live action, and strongly believe users will love the result.”
