UK’s StatsBomb Takes Full Control Of Egypt’s Sports Data Startup ArqamFC
English football analytics firm StatsBomb has checked in and taken full control of Cairo-based sports data startups ArqamFC in a deal whose financial details are being officially withheld.
The Egyptian data-offering firm is focused on bringing the first layer of intelligence to football in emerging markets. Collecting, analyzing and presenting data to fans, club, players and agencies, ArqamFC taps into the largest markets in the world, which it says is yet “inefficient”.
“From the way we talk about it as fans, to the way decisions are made, football is still in the stone ages when it comes to analysis. We are still stuck in this paradigm where most analysis is done through watching, and video cameras are the biggest tech revolution the sport has seen”, the founder said in a launching statement.
According to Menabytes, the acquisition which started from a Twitter conversation, is reported by ArqamFC to be “less about financials and more about aligning incentives for the future, and building together with the industry leader in sports data and analytics. We’re extremely satisfied with the deal terms and excited about the future.”.
The source also reports that the buyout was chosen over venture capital funding because the business benefits of being acquired by U.K-based StatsBomb brings more benefits than a funding round could have afforded the startup. The acquired company is initially a content company which looks to drive things such as fan arguments and team decisions.
Two years ago, ArqamFC added Saudi competitions to the tournaments it statistically covers, the result of partnership deals concluded with some of the largest Saudi fan accounts such as @MnbrAlhilal & @Alittihad_Saudi.
According to Al Arabiya, Mohammed Osama, ArqamFC’s chief content officer, said that the partnerships would aid in efforts to spread the stat among Saudi fans and accelerate its brand exposure during ArqamFC’s first season covering Saudi football.
The sports-tech which was founded by Ali Elfakharany, Hesham Abozekry, and Mohamed Osama in 2017 currently runs on 100 employees, and will widen its team with some essential hires on the technical and operations arms. ArqamFC does not consider this an exit, but a significant deal to help it scale operations.
PR Newswire reports: “In addition to the acquisition of the 100 strong Arqam team, StatsBomb announce a collaboration with the University of Surrey Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing to incorporate additional Computer Vision technology. The focus will be integrating CV tech to increase data delivery speed and quality”.
In a move to capitalize on the growth, StatsBomb has brought on former AS Roma, Mondogoal and DraftKings executive Shergul Arshad as Chief Commercial Officer and has signed a flurry of confidential football club partnerships.
