EGYPT – Egypt’s fantasy football startup Eksab has raised US$3 million in seed funding to expand its football gaming platform in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).
The funding round was led by 4DX Ventures with participation from Darwazah Capital, Golden Palm Investments, P1 Ventures, and certain angel investors from the sports and entertainment industry.
The startup will use the funds to expand its customer base across the Middle East and Africa. Some of the money will be used for product development, engineering, and product team recruiting and forming partnerships with football clubs.
Founded in 2018 by Aly Mahmoud, the start-up’s goal is to make football more enjoyable for every football fan in the Middle East and Africa.
The platform began with a guessing game in which users design fantasy lineups and compete in free or paid tournaments. A leaderboard displays their performance, and winners receive cash and other incentives.
Eksab has just started rolling out content for consumers to acquire news and updates on their preferred players and teams, allowing them to make better fantasy judgments based on those facts.
Later on, the startup intends to create a completely integrated platform that will become the go-to platform for soccer play-to-earn gaming, content, stats, NFTs, digital collectibles, and goods.
The startup gets a cut of all fees charged on the platform, particularly on premium contests and products.
The platform has more than 700,000 Egyptian users who compete in daily, weekly, and monthly fantasy and prediction tournaments.
Its monthly user base totals over a million ‘picks,’ and the firm claims that since the debut of its premium competitions last year, its subscribing user base has grown by an average of 60% month over month.
In order to spend even more on its technology, Eksab has announced that it will integrate with blockchain platforms to allow football fans to benefit from web3’s alleged efficiency and transparency.
According to the founder, Eksab is Egypt’s only legal fantasy football platform, it has little or no competition in Egypt or the Middle East and North Africa.
CEO Mahmoud claimed his startup is on the cusp of forming a collaboration with one of the greatest football clubs in the Middle East and Africa, in addition to obtaining licenses to operate in three more markets by the middle of this year.
Eksab has taken advantage of this to build a community for football enthusiasts and a platform where they can forecast who will win.
