Eksab, an Egyptian fantasy football platform focusing on the MENA and African regions have raised $3 million in seed funding. The round which was led by 4DX Ventures saw the participation of Darwazah Capital, Golden Palm Investment, P1 Ventures and other angel investors across the sports and entertainment professions. The Egyptian platform says it is making the world of football more exciting and bringing interaction to fans in the MENA and African regions through gaming and an online community it is building.
Thanks to the newly-acquired funding, Eksab which was founded in 2018 by Aly Mahmoud will be fueling its plans to scale its user base across the MENA and African regions, hire talents in engineering and product teams, execute partnerships with football clubs as well as go into product development.
According to founder and CEO Aly Mahmoud, the platform’s mission is “to make football more exciting for every football fan in the Middle East and Africa.” When it launched, the platform began with a prediction game that saw users create fantasy lineups and participate in free or premium competitions, with winners going home with cash or other prizes. Recently, the platform added a new feature that provides news and updates about players and teams – users of the platform can use this information to make more informed decision on Eksab’s platform.
The platform’s long-term goal is to build a fully integrated platform that will see it hold the title of the number one go-to platform for football play-to-earn gaming, content, statistics, NFTs, digital collectables and merchandise.
As part of its quest to invest and ‘upgrade” its technology, the platform is looking at integrations with blockchain platforms which will allow football fans to capitalize on the speed and transparency web3 supposedly brings.
“As a football fan, what would you want to do online? Buy jerseys, play with favourite team’s players on your fantasy lineup, get news and stats on your favourite players. We want to build this in such a way that fans can get all these from one place and in a play-to-earn manner so every interaction you would make on our platform will earn you rewards which in turn you can use to enter more contests,” Eksab’s founder said.
Eksab has no worries in terms of competition as it is the only licensed fantasy football platform in Egypt, according to its founder. The platform has acquired licenses to operate in three markets this year and is planning to sign a deal with one of the biggest football clubs in the Middle East and Africa.
“We started with football because that’s the main sport that people care about. Given that the World Cup is also around the corner, we’re going to be spending a lot on partnerships with specific football players to grow our platform and our user base. But once we feel like we’re confident that we’ve nailed football and we’re doing the best job that we can there, then we’re going to start unlocking other sports as it makes sense on a per market basis,” Eksab’s CEO said confirming that the company is looking at venturing into other sports.
Currently, Eksab has more than 70,000 users in Egypt who participate in daily, weekly and monthly fantasy predictions contests. The platform makes money by taking a percentage of all fees paid on the platform – especially from premium contests and merchandise. The company also says that its paying user base has grown 60 percent month-on-month.
