Nigel Eccles and Rob Jones, two of the founders of Scottish tech ‘unicorn’ FanDuel have raised $4 million in funding for their new esports venture, Flick, which is expected to launch in the near future.
The funding has been secured from exclusively US-based institutional investors.
Mobile Screen Sharing
Details of the new company’s technology are scarce, but the Flick website says that the new service will be the first app, which will allow mobile users to privately share their mobile screen with friends, complete with live chat.
This would put the company directly in the rapidly growing esports market, creating something similar to Twitch’s insanely popular live streaming service, but aimed specifically at the mobile market.
According to the Flick website:
“With over two billion gamers and nearly 700 million people who regularly watch gaming video content, this is a huge market. We want to give these avid fans an entirely new way of sharing their gaming experience with their friends.”
Flick has been incorporated in Delaware and will be headquartered in the US. However the company is building its engineering and development team here in Scotland, thanks to the country’s talent pool and expertise in engineering and game development.
Flick is now recruiting and is looking for programmers including those with experience of iOS and Android development.
FanDuel Acquisition
The five original FanDuel founders left the company after its private backers, led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Shamrock Capital Advisors, took control of the firm after a merger with rival DraftKings was blocked by US regulators.
In the last few weeks, FanDuel has been acquired by Irish gambling company PaddyPower Betfair, with KKR and Shamrock using their majority shareholder status to push the deal through.
While the company’s preferred shareholders (i.e. the investors) gained a 39% stake in the firm, ordinary shareholders – including the founders, staff and early stage angel investors were told that the $465 million dollar valuation was not enough to pay them anything.
