Unikrn, an eSports wagering company that has raised $7 million from celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher, Mark Cuban, has acquired an Indian-based company called DotaProHub.
Unikrn said the company will be particularly helpful as it builds a cloud-based engine for automating the eSports oddsmaking process. Over the past 18 months, DotaProHub has been providing in-depth statistics about Dota 2 professional matches.
eSports is fast becoming a huge cultural phenomenon, attracting viewer numbers on par with traditional sports such as football and basketball, but it’s just becoming a big business when it comes to betting. A recent study estimated that in 2015 eSports viewers will wager $315 million on games to generate total industry revenues of $24 million.
As part of the deal, DotaProHub founders Swaroop Hegde and Aditya Mukherjee will move to Seattle, where Unikrn’s headquarters are located. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Earlier this month, Unikrn unveiled the Unikrn Arena Global, which is just like its existing arena, where betting occurs, except it strips out the real-money component, which is illegal in the U.S. and some other countries.
Unikrn, which was co-founded by Rahul Sood, who previously led Microsoft Ventures, has made at least three acquisitions to date. In December, it acquired PlayAll, a Berlin-based online betting platform that Sood helped start back in 2007, and in February, it confirmed the acquisition of Australia-based Pinion, which operates an ad-supported eSports community.
