LESLEY Eccles, the FanDuel co-founder whose marketing strategy transformed that business from a start-up into a leader in the US fantasy sports market, has raised $2.2 million in seed finance for her new venture.
In June New York-based Ms Eccles incorporated Relish Development at UK registry Companies House with herself as the sole director.
Filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission show that the American part of that business, HelloRelish, has just raised $2.2m of a $2.4m target, with the cash being put forward by four separate investors. It is understood that the bulk of the money came from a venture capital business based in Silicon Valley.
READ MORE: FanDuel cofounder Lesley Eccles gears up for new tech launch
Ms Eccles, who moved to the US while she and her husband Nigel Eccles were still involved with FanDuel, will run the business from the US but has taken on a five-strong team in Edinburgh to build the technology behind it.
The team includes Andy Heywood and Jen Mordue, who were respectively director of engineering and senior product manager for growth at FanDuel. They both left FanDuel in the summer after it was taken over by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair.
Earlier this year Ms Eccles, who is chief executive of the new business, said its focus would be on “the mental health and relationships space, looking at how technology can enable us to be happier and more productive”.
According to its website, which is branded Relish, the business is marketing itself as the “first-ever personal trainer for your relationship”. Its app will, the website says, “coach your relationship into the best version of itself” by taking the “cutting edge of relationship science” and serving it to users in “bitesize chunks” via daily messages.
A panel of psychologists made up of Stony Brook University professor Joanne Davilla, Binghampton University psychology chair Matthew Johnson and Brigham Young University associate professor Scott Braithwaite are acting as advisers to the business.
Ms Eccles, who had been marketing director at FanDuel, stepped down from that role in 2016 but remained on the company’s board until August last year.
READ MORE: FanDuel founders sue company for $120m
During her time at FanDuel, which she, Mr Eccles and three co-founders established in Edinburgh in 2009, Ms Eccles put in place an aggressive saturation-marketing strategy that saw the business grow from a standing start into a household name in the US daily fantasy sports market.
Despite being headquartered in Edinburgh, the business generates all its revenues in the US, where customers use its technology to play competitive fantasy sports games based on the real-life performance of players in a number of sports leagues.
All five founders had left FanDuel by the start of this year after the firm’s private equity backers, led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Shamrock Capital Advisors, took control when a planned merger with rival DraftKings fell apart.
Earlier this year KKR and Shamrock exercised their majority shareholder drag-along rights to push through the sale of FanDuel to Paddy Power Betfair, which is capitalising on the business’s fantasy sports customer-base to market its sportsbook.
READ MORE: Former FanDuel chief raises $4m for new venture Flick
While sports betting was previously outlawed in the US, it was legalised in the state of New Jersey in June, weeks after the terms of the FanDuel-Paddy Power Betfair deal were signed.
FanDuel and DraftKings have been by far the biggest beneficiaries of the change, with the former generating $7.2m in sports-betting revenues in September, up from $3.1m in August, while the latter saw its betting-related revenues rise from $3.1m to $8.8m in the same period.
Four of FanDuel’s co-founders, including Mr and Mrs Eccles, are suing the company for $120m, claiming the valuation it received as part of the Paddy Power Betfair deal did not take account of the potential for betting income.
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