Cairo-based daily fantasy sports platform Eksab has announced that it has secured a “six figure” seed investment from venture capital (VC) firm 500 startups.
Eksab was founded in 2017 by CEO Aly Mahmoud. The startup’s app, which is available both on Google Play and the Apple App Store, lets users make predictions about live football games from around the world.
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Users then collect points based on the accuracy of their predictions and then get rewarded with prizes.
Eksab claims that to date, the company has processed more than five million predictions from thousand of users across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Eksab will use the investment to scale its product, with the aim of processing 100 predictions over the next year
The startup said in a statement last Sunday (16 June) that it will use the investment to scale its product to millions of football fans in the MENA region with the aim of processing 100 million predictions over the next year.
When emailed yesterday (18 June), Mahmoud declined to comment on the specifics of the deal as well as other questions on the startup’s operations and user numbers.
The investment comes days before the Africa Cup of Nations which kicks off this Friday (21 June) with a game between host nation Egypt and Zimbabwe. Commenting in the same statement, Mahmoud said the tournament is “going to be quite busy”, adding that this is all ramping up to the 2022 World Cup.
“The timing couldn’t be better for us to partner with one of the most notable investors worldwide,” he said.
Mahmoud also said that “there’s never been a more exciting time” to be a football fan in the Middle-East and Africa than now.
“We plan to capitalise on increased attention, engagement and spending on football content in the region, and are very fortunate to be able to go on this journey with 500 Startups,” said Mahmoud.
The startup also announced that it is offering free advertising sponsorship packages to 10 MENA-based startups who are interested in reaching a community comprised mostly of males between the ages of 14 to 49 who are interested in football and tech.
500 Startups partner Sharif El-Badawi, commenting in the same statement, explained that the VC has been following the daily fantasy sports industry for months and were impressed with what Eksab has been able to achieve.
“Their team is very focused on the user-experience, talking to their users daily while iterating to deliver the most engaging platform possible. We believe we can add significant support to Eksab with our investment,” said El-Badawi.
In March, 500 Startups partner Hasan Haider told Ventureburn that between 150 to 200 startups from the MENA region are set to benefit from millions of dollars in funding.
This after the VC announced in the same month that it had raised $33-million in an oversubscribed final closing for its 500 Falcons MENA focused fund (see this story).
Read more: MENA focused $33m fund 500 Falcons to invest in over 150 startups500 Falcons
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