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February 28, 2006
Betfair’s valuation up with Softbank investment
Privately-owned Betfair, a six-year old online betting exchange, is now valued at £1.5B ($2.6B), according to news coming out of London today.
Softbank, the Japanese investment company, has agreed to buy up to 23 percent of online onling gambling platform, the Sporting Exchange Ltd., the company behind Betfair, according to a Reuters report today.
Betfair enables gamblers to make or take bets on sporting and racing events. It charges a commission on each wager.
There was no disclosure on the amount paid for the stake. However, Reuters cites the Financial Times which said the price paid per share was £13, giving Betfair a valuation of £1.5B. The venture came close to a flotation last year with a valuation of £1B, according to the same report.
Betfair's press release suggests that Softbank is buying out shares of existing investors, but it is not very explicit.The firm has a long list of shareholders as it was formed as a result of merging in 2001 two companies: Betfair, a bootstrapped company (whose founders still lead the venture), and Flutter, a venture-backed startup, which raised £27m from a syndicate of investors that included Benchmark Capital Europe, Index Ventures, UBS Capital and JP Morgan Partners.
Index Ventures says that the exchange “delivers consistently better odds than traditional bookmakers”.
Read - Softbank to buy stake in Sporting Exchange (Reuters)
Posted on February 28, 2006 03:34 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | Permalink
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