Smarkets, the UK-based peer-to-peer betting exchange, has raised a fresh $2.3 million round of funding led by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Venture, along with existing backer Passion Capital. This brings the London startup’s total funding to $3.3m.
The addition capital will be used to “accelerate technical and product development”, specifically through staffing up in engineering and other developer positions to help deliver a roadmap that includes things like new markets for punters to trade on, a dedicated mobile app, and price history and trading charts.
Meanwhile, Randeep Wilkhu, Senior Investment Manager at T-Venture, and Robert Dighero, Angel Investor and Partner at Passion Capital, will join the Smarkets board.
Smarkets, which was founded by Jason Trost in 2008 but didn’t publicly launch until early 2010, is aiming to disrupt the lucrative and highly competitive betting industry with what it claims is superior technology and a better deal for punters through lower commissions on each bet — just 2%, which is an “industry-low”, says the company.
Competing most directly with incumbent Betfair, Smarkets enables peer-to-peer betting in which users set their own odds and bet against one another, mainly on various sports. It’s currently seeing £30m in transactions traded per month.