Include, One of the largest sports betting and gaming companies in the world, Announce On Thursday, it has agreed to acquire unicorn, A Seattle-based startup operating an e-sports betting platform. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Unikrn was founded in 2014 and is supported by celebrity investors including Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher.It has built a global e-sports betting platform that allows people to bet on e-sports matches in games, such as League of Legends Either Counter-strike Just like they did with traditional sports.
Entain owns a series of online brands, such as bwin and Ladbrokes, which involve sports betting, casino, poker and bingo games. In 2020, it processed more than $16 billion in sports betting, has 20 offices worldwide and more than 24,000 employees.
Unikrn will temporarily suspend its services after the transaction is completed.
Rahul Sud, Formerly led Microsoft Ventures and technical veterinarians Calflores Founded the company. Flores succeeded Sood as CEO last year and will join Entain with other Unikrn employees. According to LinkedIn, the company has approximately 40 employees.
Sudd told GeekWire that he will stay in Seattle and is looking for new opportunities.
“This is an interesting journey full of celebration, challenges and a lot of happiness,” Sude told GeekWire. “I am excited about the future of Unikrn and Entain, and I will start looking for some cool things to do.”
Entain says it has hired former Twitch executives Justin Delario Lead e-sports operations.
“An exciting opportunity is the growing market for betting on e-sports skills,” Entain CEO Jette Nygaard-Andersen said in a statement. “We are building the first scalable platform to deal with this market, and I am very happy that Justin Dellario has joined us to lead our growth in this new area.”
Unikrn also Raised $31 million for the initial coin offering Four years ago, but encountered legal problems. Earlier this year, the company paid a fine of 6.1 million U.S. dollars and was forced to ban its UnikoinGold (UKG) cryptocurrency in order to resolve the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s allegations that its unregistered initial coin offering violated federal securities laws.
Unikrn raised US$10 million in a round of equity financing in 2014.