Egypt’s Eksab, an online Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) platform has raised a six-figure seed investment from 500 Startups as it looks to become MENA’s top fantasy sports platform in MENA and the GCC ahead of the forthcoming African Cup of Nations being hosted in Egypt.
Eksab is looking to tap into the region’s love for football to engage football fans with exciting and engaging mobile games as more and more youths in MENA and GCC turn to football as their favourite pastime. There are over 1 billion football fans in MEA, the firm aims to make football games more engaging and fun for the fans.
“We live in a region that is obsessed with football. I remember going out to hand out flyers on the day that Egypt made it to the World Cup. People were fighting over Eksab flyers with the Egyptian team’s picture on them,” said Co-Founder and CEO Aly Mahmoud, “There has never been a more exciting time to be a football fan in the Middle-East and Africa than now. We plan to capitalize 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.”
Eksab also enables users to make predictions on live football games from around the world, earn points and get rewarded whenever they make a correct prediction. Eksab has processed more than 5 million predictions since launch.
With the seed investment from 500 Startups, Eksab plans to scale its product to the millions of football fans in the region with the goal of processing 100 million predictions over the next year.
“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 Sharif El-Badawi, Partner at 500 Startups.
The firm is also 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 14-49, interested in football and technology.
“It’s going to be quite busy, and 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,” concluded Aly Mahmoud.
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