Our sister site, Gambling911.com, recently sat down with Oulala.com chief executive officer, Valery Bollier, to discuss the emerging daily and weekly fantasy sports industry in Europe.
Bollier’s company is based out of Malta, an island nation located in the Mediterranean that has long been a hot spot for online gambling firms. In fact, Bollier comes from the world of Web gambling.
“While working in the Internet gaming sector, mainly as a marketing director, I realized that customers were increasingly seeking richer experiences than the one offered by luck games,” he tells G911’s Thomas Somach. “Fantasy sports is a social skill game that perfectly answered that need.
“When I met Ben Carlotti, the co-founder and managing director of Oulala, he introduced me to the concept of fantasy sports. I quickly knew that this was exactly what I was looking for. We have been working on Oulala full-time for the past three years. I have now worked for over 10 years in the Internet gaming industry and before that, mainly in online marketing and media. I hold an EMBA from HEC business school and a Master of Management from Dauphine University, both in France.”
Bollier also tells Gambling911 his company is in some ways looking to imitate the business plan of US-based daily fantasy sports behemoths DraftKings.com and FanDuel, but on European soil.
“We are currently working on our Series A funding round–a million and a half pounds–and will most probably start our Series B round, 10 to 12 months later. Therefore, yes, we could say that we are trying to follow their fast-growing path.”
– Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com