The former head of communications of Paddy Power Betfair - now Flutter Entertainment - is raising €500,000 to accelerate growth at the first sports trading exchange - ASX.
Paddy Power, who said that ASX will offer sports fans a new way to speculate on player and team performance, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Spark CrowdFunding.
Paddy Power explained that ASX is integrating fantasy sports scoring with financial market technology to create the world's first sports trading exchange.
The platform will offer live "share prices" of individual players and teams based on expected performance.
Its proprietary AI-driven algorithm and live data feed will update prices continually and ASX users can buy or sell shares based on how they believe a player or team will perform in the short run or long run.
Trades are then exited in a similar way to which a stock exchange operates, with ASX taking a small commission on each trade.
Paddy Power said fantasy, free to play and real-money options are all available, with new players and teams added regularly.
The global sports betting industry reached a market size of $203 billion in 2020.
Sports betting revenue in the US is predicted to grow to as much as $8 billion by 2025. New Jersey, with only 2% of the US population, had $3.2 billion in online fantasy sports gaming last year.
Equity crowdfunding allows small and medium sized investors to purchase shares in early-stage companies.
Earlier this year, Spark Crowdfunding raised €1.2m in 12 days for Akkure Genomics, a Nova-UCD clinical trials company.
It has completed 18 fundraising campaigns for Irish early-stage companies since it launched in 2018.
Campaign sizes have ranged from €100,000 to €1.2m with the average investment amount of €2,300. The minimum investment for this campaign is €100.
