- Azuro has raised $3.5 million from backers such as Gnosis, Arrington XRP, Ethereal Ventures, Polymorphic Capital and Flow Ventures.
- The startup has managed to overcome initial skepticism from investors who are now backing it to change the world of online betting.
Azuro, a DAO that focuses on decentralized betting, has raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Gnosis and Flow Ventures. The funding round also the participation of Arrington XRP Capital, DeFi Alliance, Delphi DIgital, Ethereal Ventures and Clever Advertising.
The funding round also the participation of individual investors including Chainlink’s David Post, ex-Huobi’s David Gan, IDEX founder Alex Wearn and Sergei Chan from BlockScience.
In a blog post announcing the funding round, Azuro stated:
Having the backing of this group is excellent validation for our efforts so far and makes us even more confident we are on the right path to bring decentralized betting to the world.
It added, “The support we’ve got is indicative of our ambitions — to disrupt web2 sports betting with a trustless, permissionless proposition, and to create the new betting layer on top of web3 with totally novel use-cases and functionality.”
The investors come from various backgrounds and will play a part in making Azuro the next big thing in the world of decentralized betting. They include web3, DeFi, blockchain infrastructure, GameFi, traditional betting infrastructure, sports betting and lead generation. Clever Advertising, for instance, is a top-three global sports betting media company while Gnosis is a pioneer in the world of decentralized betting.
As the company revealed, when it set out to raise funds, it was met with skepticism over its offering. Investors brushed them off since there have been plenty of other startups that tried to change this sector but failed. Betting also carries a stigma as a sector that’s tough to enter or thrive in.
However, the team persisted and were fully convinced that they could change the $300 billion-a-year industry.
“All in all, in the end — we managed to turn most skeptics around. Furthermore, we found great backers in web3/GameFi / P2E who saw the immense potential for the native integration of Azuro’s solution into this vast emerging environment (the metaverse),” the Azuro team stated.
The unique Azuro model
Azuro has identified some of the pitfalls that have led to the downfall of most blockchain betting firms, including the inhibition of efficient liquidity allocation due to the nature of the peer-to-peer model they use. They also lack betting understanding and regulatory awareness.
Azuro uses a common pool instead of an individual pool to provide liquidity. It then relies on oracles to import odds for events using real-world, live betting data.
Speaking on the investment, Arrington Capital’s Ninor Mansor stated:
Azuro’s peer-to-pool approach represents a true turning point, building off the learnings of DeFi to build a system which challenges the consensus view. Azuro could not come at a better time, just as the P2E economy emerges and Web3 based e-sports begin to take on a life of their own.
Related: Augur ventures into sports betting with Polygon-based Augur Turbo
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