London-based fantasy sports gaming provider Picklive has been sold to private investors, led by David Galan, the CEO of pool betting provider Sports Millions, which is the B2B arm of Soccer Millionaire.
Picklive is an innovative, real-time fantasy sports game that turns the season long fantasy football model on its head by mixing fantasy football with in-play betting and social networking. Originally backed by a number of leading tech investors including Passion Capital, Picklive invented live fantasy football as a form of second screen entertainment.
The new owners have ambitious plans for the business, including expanding the offering from purely a fantasy football game to also include a range of other sports such as cricket, baseball, American football and a variety of other new markets.
The long term plan is to provide the Picklive game to existing gaming operators with established player bases, while also looking towards the US market, where fantasy sports is a major industry and also one of the only genres of online gaming that is currently legal.
Commenting on the acquisition, Galan said: “The founding team has developed world class and truly innovative technology, which we believe is a unique fusion of sports betting, in-play engagement and social style gaming and that will undoubtedly appeal to gaming operators. The sports betting market is moving towards new models and we see second screen entertainment as a massive growth market. We hope to continue developing the Picklive product to realise its worldwide potential.”
