SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Sports betting returns to Wall Street’s grapevine as Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal report that Genius Sports is the target of a future IPO by a special purpose acquisition company’ (SPAC).
The US news sources cite that tech executives Harry You, a former VP of EMC Corp (now Dell EMC), and Niccolo De Masi, former Chief Executive of San Francisco mobile games publisher GLU, have formed a ‘blank cheque company’ to lead Genius’ float.
‘According to people with knowledge of the matter’, De Masi and You are reported to have secured guarantees of $300 million through their SPAC ‘dMY Technology Group’ which will tempt Genius to go public pursuing a $1.5 billion valuation.
dMY Technology is no stranger to an IPO rodeo, having this summer convinced Chicago-based casino group Rush Street Interactive to merge and pursue a New York Stock Exchange listing (yet to be sanctioned).
De Masi and You are reported to want to establish dMY Technology as the lead SPAC for US wagering properties, developing new ‘tech unicorns’ which will dominate Wall Street’s market valuations.
Genius carries US investors having been acquired outright in 2018 by US private equity fund Apax Partners seeking to turn the company into the leading sports tech, data and media rights distributor for a disrupted US sports landscape post-PASPA.
Despite maintaining aggressive US growth plans, Genius and Apax have made no noise on any future merger or IPO ambitions. Bloomberg cites that a source believes that a ‘transaction could be announced as soon as this week’… Watch this space.
