Industry News
Mercurius closes its second-round investment reaching 800K in raised capital
Sports data technology startup sets sights on betting as an asset class
Sports-betting and data technology start-up Mercurius is delighted to announce it has achieved its target of raising €500,000 in second- round funding from industry investors.
The Milan-based company has now raised a total of €800,000 from two funding rounds and will use the money raised to enhance and develop its sports-trading product and further expand the team.
Mercurius was founded in 2017 by Fabrizio Machella, the CEO, Lorenzo Malanga who performs the role of Head of Data Science and Mario Ciardulli who is the company’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Machella said he was excited by the level of interest the business generated in its latest funding round.
“We have a very thrilling idea for the future of sports trading and we are very pleased that our investors agree that we are on the right path,” he said.
“They are backing our vision of building a product that will exploit the increasing similarities between the worlds of gambling on sports and trading financial instruments. Our whole proposition is based on the idea that sports betting will become ever more trading- and exchange-based thanks to the evolution of data analysis and predictive technology.”
Sports-betting into finance
The money from the second round of funding will help develop Mercurius’ idea of moving sports-betting towards being regarded as a new type of alternative asset class.
Specifically, a pilot will be set up with investment firm Digital Value which will create a financial vehicle for sophisticated investors to take advantage of Mercurius’ AI- based data technology.
“We plan to increase the number of competitions we can analyse and the types of bets we can effectively cover alongside being able to model workable hedging strategies,” added Machella.
“We want to create the tech stack that can be used by asset managers for use in what we see as a coming and importantly uncorrelated asset class of the future.”
First-round funding
In its first round of funding in 2018, Mercurius was backed by an Italian venture capitalist, Wylab, the first Italian sports-tech incubator which facilitated a partnership with football analytics company Wyscout, as well as business angels Andrea Anderlini, Luca Russo and Luigi Tempio. All the previous investors have invested in the second round of funding alongside business angels Piero Minotti, Roberto Rossi, Stan Ivanov and Mattia Pasquali.
“We love what Fabrizio and his team are trying to achieve,” said Federico Smanio, Wylab CEO. “Sports data and analytics is really coming of age and the way that Mercurius is leveraging that in the field of sports-betting is awesome. We are really very happy to be accompanying them on this journey.”
Early-stage investor Anton Kaszubowski from Greenlaw added that he was very impressed with what he had seen of the technology and how it can potentially revolutionise ideas around sports-betting and investment.
“This isn’t just a sports-betting product,” he said. “What Mercurius has done is produce a product that takes advantage of developments in trading, exchange betting and data analysis and wielded it into a platform that could really shake things up in the twin area of gambling and investing.”
Mattia Pasquali from Digital Value said the company was very excited about its joint venture and was looking forward to enabling uncorrelated value creation for its clients. “Sports betting and finance are getting closer due to the power of data analytics; we are very well positioned with this partnership in place to benefit from the increasing demand for alternative products due to the high maturity of the current economic cycle,” he said.
About Mercurius:
Mercurius BI is a tech start-up, operating in Italy and in the UK, aimed at transforming sports betting into a new financial investment category. Mercurius was founded in 2017 by Fabrizio Machella (CEO), Lorenzo Malanga (Head of Data Science) and Mario Ciardulli (CMO), and subsequently backed by an Italian VC, by the sports tech incubator Wylab and by a group of business angels in 2018. Since its inception, Mercurius has been improving its proprietary AI algorithms to crunch massive amounts of detailed sports data in order to create profitable value betting strategies. Today Mercurius’s technology is available to professional traders and sophisticated investors through its app for the Betfair Exchange (https://trader.mercurius.io). Mercurius’s innovative quantitative approach to sports trading is the foundation for the Company’s vision of establishing sports betting as a viable alternative investment asset class. The Company is now eager to start working with investment firms to create tailored financial products based on sports trading that are targeted at qualified investors.
Industry News
Maximising Your Cross-Market Appeal
With Bitblox introducing an entirely new breed of crypto-based price prediction games to the iGaming industry, we talked to CEO, Brandt Page, to discover how combining elements of both chance and skill with lightning-fast betting rounds has helped improve their cross-market appeal.
When Bitblox was first established, our core concept was relatively simple; we didn’t just want to provide players with a new twist on an existing format like slots or casino games, but instead sought to create an entirely new vertical that combined elements of chance and elements of skill.
One of the main drivers behind this decision was the fact that we wanted our releases to appeal to as broad an audience as possible – and I think from the figures we’ve seen so far, we’ve already had some notable success on that front in terms of the players that are engaging with our games.
Funnily enough, I was recently talking to the Head of Marketing from one of the operators that we work with and they told me they were struggling to place our games optimally. Initially, they’d put them in with crash and instant win content, but they soon discovered a lot of their in-game traffic was coming from sports bettors. A move to the sports betting tab followed, but the exact same-thing happened with casino players, leading to the games eventually winding up on the front page.
As this was going on, our games were continuing to post solid numbers with the customers who bet on both sports and casino – and all of this engagement was coming without there being any additional promotion from us or the operator. So why was it that our games were performing so well across these different player segments? I believe there are a number of contributing factors.
First and foremost, having this hybrid model of games of chance and games of skill that I’ve already mentioned has placed us in a fairly unique position within the iGaming industry. On the one hand, the simple premise of our Bitcoin-based titles – coupled with their attractive designs and intuitive UI – makes them highly accessible to casino players who are just looking to have fun.
On the other, the fact that Bitblox games aren’t based on RNG and are instead pinned to the real-time movements of the Bitcoin market certainly resonates with a sports betting audience. As they have the ability to follow the charts and use this information to inform their decisions, they definitely feel they have more control over the outcome than if they were playing a traditional slot.
Another key aspect of our cross-market appeal is the fast-paced nature of all Bitblox releases. With casino players being accustomed to the quick wins and instant gratification of slots and crash games and sports bettors also showing a growing preference for in-play wagering, we’ve ensured each game round is resolved quickly and that there are multiple opportunities for betting.
When we first launched Up or Down?, which features one-minute betting rounds, we soon learned that even this timeframe is too long for some players. This resulted in us developing Up or Down? Turbo – a game which kept the same mechanics as its predecessor but reduced the betting window to 20 seconds – and this has gone on to become one of our most successful titles.
Keeping all this in mind, one of the things I’m most excited about is the upcoming release of our latest game, 3 in a Row, as I think this is a title that really ties everything I’ve talked about so far together. Designed to look like a slot machine, 3 in a Row challenges players to correctly predict how the Bitcoin price will move over three separate 20-second windows for even bigger payouts.
Intended to appeal to casual users and serious sports bettors alike, players can elect to either spin the reels for fun and select a random price sequence or use the bet builder feature to put together their own custom prediction. With the latter essentially functioning like an accumulator bet, players can select up to three possible combinations – i.e. Up/Up/Up, Up/Up/Down etc – and only one result needs to land for them to win, ensuring they stay engaged until the final seconds.
I believe that 3 in a Row can help build on the strong foundations we’ve laid down with casino and sports bettors and provide operators with another popular option that offers significant cross-market appeal. Based on what we’ve seen from previous Bitblox releases, the audience for titles that combine elements of chance and elements of skill is definitely out there – and I’m looking forward to our unique brand of crypto-based games being enjoyed by even more players in future.
Industry News
Gaming Corps to launch with lotteries in the USA via EQL games deal
In-demand content provider extends reach into largest iGaming market in the world with its full suite of games made available via iLottery aggregation platform
Gaming Corps, a publicly-listed game studio based in Sweden renowned for creating industry-leading games, has made its debut in the US market through a breakthrough agreement with leading lottery provider, EQL Games.
The distribution agreement will see Gaming Corps’ full suite of games made available to EQL Games’ powerful iLottery Aggregation Platform, developed to provide lottery operators across America with direct access to a portfolio of proprietary and third-party games.
Following the integration, EQL Games’ lottery operator partners will be offered proven Slots, Table Games, Multiplier Games, Mine Games and Plinko Games, as well as titles under Gaming Corps’ innovative and trademarked Smash4Cash™ series.
The deal and integration come at a time of growing demand among online lottery operators in the US for non-traditional content, a format that Gaming Corps has excelled in, especially with its Smash4Cash™ games, which have been a hit with players in global markets.
EQL’s aggregation platform has been developed to allow online lottery operators to quickly and easily access content from multiple game studios simultaneously through one integration and one commercial agreement.
Its iLottery Aggregation platform simplifies the process of adding new games to an online lottery brand across regulated states. In addition to the third-party content provided via its aggregator platform, EQL Games has a portfolio of in-house titles.
This includes games produced under licence with Team USA which were rolled out by several state lotteries for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this year, with new titles being planned ahead of the Winter Games in Milan (2026) and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles (2028).
Juha Kauppinen, CEO of Gaming Corps, said: “The USA has always been somewhat of the holy grail for game developers like us, which has been further emphasised as markets in several states have become regulated. The potential in the American market is enormous, and the impact for us is a bit difficult to assess, but we have great hopes for the collaboration with EQL Games, which has an impressive platform towards U.S. lotteries.
“We believe it will have a significantly positive impact on our revenues. I would like to personally take the opportunity to thank EQL Games and Brad Cummings for the collaboration, and we are now working hard to complete the integration so that all our games will be offered to EQL’s customers via their platform.”
Brad Cummings, CEO of EQL Games, added: “Including Gaming Corps as a supplier to the EQL Games iLottery Aggregator is an exciting step forward in our mission to offer unique, high-quality content to state lotteries. Gaming Corps’ expertise in iGaming, along with their unique game portfolio, fits perfectly with our vision of enhancing the lottery experience through dynamic and engaging content.”
Industry News
Public Voting Starts for Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0
The highly anticipated Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0 has officially entered the public voting phase as submissions are closed.
More than 70 game providers have turned in over 160 submissions, including Tom Horn Gaming, Pragmatic Play and RubyPlay. Public voting involves enthusiasts casting their votes to pick the winner of the Game of Public Choice category.
The Public voting phase ends on December 1st 23:59 GMT+4.
Concurrent to public voting, the first phase of private voting also starts during which all participants who have submitted entries get the chance to vote for one favourite in each category. An international auditing company oversees this phase to eliminate duplicate votes and self-votes. This phase ends on November 19, 23:59 GMT+4.
The second phase of private voting will also take place with a jury of industry experts making their decisions based on the shortlist picked by participants during the first phase.
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