Fantastic.ng, the first Nigerian fantasy sports company has sealed a multimillion naira promotional partnership deal with Dutch conglomerate LambWeston, owners of the Poundo Potato brand in Nigeria.
Commenting on the development, Co-founder of Fantastic Technologies Limited, Felix Okoye stated that “This is what Fantastic has always been about. We want to convert fans of sport into fans of brands. Football is huge in Africa and we are all about connecting this super-engaged audience across the continent to the thousands of brands who desire their attention”
In a statement, the Country Managing Director for LambWeston, Victor Nwachukwu said “We are very excited to work with such a unique gaming platform. Like millions of Nigerians, Dutch people are obsessed with football so for us it was a natural fit to partner with Fantastic in order to amplify our Poundo Potato brand in Nigeria”
Launched in late 2019, Fantastic is a unique free-to-play mobile platform offering games such as predict and win, fantasy football and sports trivia. The company employs a B2B2C business model and generates revenue from users via weekly/monthly subscriptions and companies who can purchase a variety of promotional packages to engage their customers and amplify their brands.
Fantastic has attracted a variety of technology investors since its launch including serial angel investor, Olumide Soyombo of Voltron Capital and Blackaion Capital
The Newsagency of Nigeria has reported that as of 2018, 60 million Nigerians regularly engaged in sports betting generating over $2b in wagers.
“We are literally changing the game for sports fans across Africa starting with Nigeria,” says Ossy Iyizoba, the co-founder of Fantastic Technologies. “In Africa, sports betting has been the only game in town for most sports fans. We are an innovative technology company with a very unique value proposition and while our target audience will inevitably include a large number of sports betting enthusiasts, we are expanding the market by attracting huge numbers of sports fans who for various reasons, do not engage in sports betting”.
While LambWeston is the first corporate partner to come on board, the Fantastic team confirmed they are in talks with multiple parties including one of the largest digital banks in Nigeria and a multinational brewery company.
To bolster its technology, Fantastic Tech recently completed the acquisition of soccer data and social networking site Sangalo. In July, the company also received a national license from the National Lottery Regulatory Commission which will now allow it to establish the Fantastic brand across Nigeria. The platform currently has about 10k registered users and has processed over two million predictions in 2021 alone
Ultimately, the vision of the Fantastic Tech team is to build the Dream Sports for Africa. The Indian gaming behemoth behind the popular Dream 11 Fantasy Football game was recently valued at $5b and has attracted investment from major US and Chinese venture firms.
