US-facing sports betting affiliate business SharpLink Gaming has has acquired certain assets from SharpLink Management LLC and 6t4 Company, collectively known as FourCubed, for $8.2m.
The purchase price comprises $6.5m and the issue of approximately 600,000 restricted ordinary shares of SharpLink, with an additional earn-out payment of up to 600,000 shares based on the acquired business achieving certain performance targets.
The deal includes the acquisition of FourCubed’s igaming and affiliate marketing network, focused on delivering traffic and player acquisitions, retention and conversions to operator partners around the world.
Founded in 2005, FourCubed owns and operates an international igaming affiliate network made up of more than 12,000 sub-affiliates and has delivered over 1.8 million referred players since the network’s launch in 2008.
Over the past three years, FourCubed has averaged annual revenues of more than $5.5m, with over 90% of its revenue coming from recurring net gaming revenue contracts with leading igaming operators such as Party Poker, Bwin, Unibet, GGPoker, Bet365, 888 Poker and Betfair.
“SharpLink has more than 2.5 million players engaging with our fantasy and sports games platforms through our network sites and our sports league and media partnership sites,” SharpLink co-founder and chief executive Rob Phythian said.
“We believe that FourCubed’s technology platform, its team’s affiliate marketing expertise, as well as its approach to player conversions, can be readily adapted to SharpLink’s platform, unleashing extraordinary value from our growing audience of sports fans as adoption of our C4 sports betting conversion technology continues to accelerate.”
FourCubed founder Chris Carlson, who will now become vice president of conversion at SharpLink as a result of the acquisition, added: “I believe that our companies’ united strengths and respective spheres of influence in the industry will create a catalyst for pronounced growth of SharpLink well into the foreseeable future.
“With the igaming and sports betting markets beginning to gain notable momentum in the US, we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to help ensure SharpLink wins industry dominance as the preferred partner to media operators, leagues and sportsbooks seeking to optimize player engagement and customer lifetime value of sports fans converted to sports bettors.”