GamePLAI secures £1.5m investment from betting industry veterans

Sportsbook trading supplier GamePLAI has secured £1.5m in new investment from industry veterans including former Pinnacle trading director Marco Blume.

The investment will see the supplier, which offers AI-powered automated trading products for player props pricing, microbetting and risk management, look to expand its footprint globally.

According to GamePLAI, the financing will be used to accelerate its growth at a “pivotal point” this year, supporting the company’s technology and product roadmap over the next 12 months.

The funding comes “ahead of a summer of defining sporting highlights, notably the Copa America and Euro 2024, alongside the culmination of the current NBA campaign and the upcoming renewal of the MLB season,” GamePLAI added.

Product launch incoming

The company already has a live Micro Markets solution, and is soon set to launch a player props offering, including a ‘Player Micros’ product for football.

The launch is set to take place ahead of the Copa America and Euro 2024, as such tournaments are “invariably key drivers for annual turnover and new-account acquisition.”

“At GamePLAI, we’re harnessing the gains in automation seen in other tech sectors and bringing them to the sports betting industry, with more accurate pricing and automation which reduces the manual overhead of risk management for trading teams,” said co-founder and CEO Graham Savage.

“Our growing group of partners are benefiting from a series of never-before-seen, player-focused markets that engage fans both pre-game and in-play. These innovative and original markets afford customers a more personalised betting experience around their favourite players.

“Our mission is to become the premium supplier of automated and quantitative driven sports solutions within the industry and we feel very fortunate to have the backing of our investors in delivering our vision.”

New chairman appointed

In addition to its new funding, GamePLAI has also added former Banach Technology head of corporate development, Donal Barron, to its leadership team in the role of chairman.

Barron spent some three years with the sports betting technology supplier, which was sold to PointsBet in a $43m deal in 2021.

Prior to that role, Barron spent more than seven years at Paddy Power, where he acted as a business analyst for sports and a B2B commercial development manager.

Before that, he spent two years as a business development manager at the Racing Post.

His new role as chairman “coalesces his proven record of scaling businesses and positioning them for success,” GamePLAI said.

“His senior appointment provides another timely signal of intent as to GamePLAI’s vision for the future.”