Social gaming platform acquired by Spanish digital company

Barcelona-based digital technology business group ExoGroup has announced the acquisition of free to play social gaming sports platform Playfulbet and its 8 million registered players.

Founded by former professional poker player Pol Ruiz in 2012, players are given free virtual coins to use to bet on the outcome of a range of sports match verticals: football, basketball, tennis, e-sports, baseball and rugby.

Players receive coins each time they win a bet, and when they have accumulated a sufficient number of coins, these can be cashed out for prizes.

Playfulbet is available to play on desktop, mobile web and via iOS and Android apps, and the Playfulbet apps boasts 2 million installs. The enterprise is targeted on males aged 18-35 years old and Spain is its largest market with 4 million users followed by 3.2 million across Latam countries, with the remainder spread across Europe/rest of the World.

The company generates significant advertising revenues from online gambling websites, video games, electronic devices and user retargeted advertising sources such as Amazon

Benjamin Fonzé, CEO and founder of ExoGroup said in a company statement Monday:

“We welcome Playfulbet to our group of companies to join ExoClick, EXADS, AdSecure and MobileCashout. I was very impressed with Playfulbet’s great product offering, market positioning and talented team. The company is a great fit for us as a group because Playfulbet generates its income from online advertising, which is a business we know inside and out.

“EXADS and ExoClick have the technology and publishing/advertising sales experience to help Playfulbet really ramp up its traffic in existing and new GEOs, boost its ad inventory value and help it reach a global network of advertisers. MobileCashout provides a range of sports related entertainment content for mobile that can be integrated into Playfulbet’s revenue model. AdSecure will monitor all the advertising displayed on the Playfulbet platform to ensure advertising compliance. Through our intercompany synergies we can ensure Playfulbet grows into a highly profitable global sports betting platform.”

Playfulbet’s newly appointed CEO Christian Khoury added: “Currently Playfulbet has 8 employees. ExoGroup bought out the previous investors, for an undisclosed sum. Benjamin sees huge potential in Playfulbet and ExoGroup will inject at least Euro 1 million into the product over the next 18 months.

“The high-level strategy is to heavily invest in the Barcelona team, develop the platform’s technology for both desktop and new versions of the iOS and Android apps. From a marketing perspective we will increase our market share in existing markets and enter into new markets and drive user acquisition through media campaigns. We have set a goal to grow the amount of registered users globally over the next 24 months to 100 million and 200 million by the end of 2021.”