Egyptian fantasy football platform Eksab has announced its raise of US$3 million in seed funding. This totals the amount raised by Eksab to $3.5M in 4 rounds.
This new funding will be used to scale the business across the Middle East and Africa. The capital will also be used to develop its product, hire talent in engineering and product teams, as well as execute partnerships with football clubs.
The funding round was led by 4DX Ventures with participation from Darwazah Capital, Golden Palm Investments, P1 Ventures, and other angel investors from the local and global sports and entertainment ecosystem.
Ahmed Omran and Aly Mahmoud co-founded Eksab- which translates as win or achieve in Arabic- in 2018 with a mission to make football exciting for every fan in the Middle-East and Africa through an integrated gaming and content experience.
To begin with, fantasy football is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real life football players and score points based on those players’ actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play.
As is typical in fantasy football, players on Eksab can choose free or premium competitions, make predictions and choose line-ups, with winners climbing the leaderboard and winning cash and prizes
According to TechCrunch, Eksab presently has over 700,000 registered users in Egypt, with its user base making over a million “picks” each month. Since the launch of its premium competitions in 2021, the startup has grown its paying user base by an average of 60% month-on-month. Moreso, Eksab has already partnered with more than 10 top-tier Egyptian football players and content creators.
Eksab is the first and only licensed fantasy football platform in Egypt presently and is seeking to acquire licenses to operate in three new markets mid-2022.
With technology and innovation as a front burner, Eksab is planning some integration with blockchain platforms to enable football fans to capitalize on web3’s supposed speed and transparency.
Eksab claims it has processed over 20 million games on its daily fantasy and predictions platforms, and been listed as a top 5 gaming app on Google Play.
“This is a phenomenally high growth period in our business as we look to take our platform to new audiences. We are also really excited to have some leading global investors and partners join this round. The fact that our previous investors are all doubling-down on Eksab highlights the great effort the team has put in over the last 12 months and the massive opportunity in the sector,” said Aly Mahmoud, Eksab’s founder and CEO.
“With the growth of Web3 and play-to-earn gaming, we see Eksab as being at the forefront of the digital transformation of football, content, community and gaming across Africa and the Middle East,” he said
Dan Marlo, managing partner at 4DX Ventures, said his firm had been impressed by the growth of Eksab.
“The football gaming market is enormous globally, but especially in MENA. Eksab has built a product and a community that has been rapidly growing in the MENA region but can easily scale across the continent – which fits 4DX’s investment ethos perfectly,” he said.
