Mark Blandford the founder of sportingbet.com has emerged as a significant investor in the very latest mobile gambling software designed and built by Mfuse. Mfuse has announced after the company announced a fund-raising exercise which saw a further £2.55m pumped into the firm.
The founder of Sportingbet has invested £1.55m while original Mfuse investors Bestport Ventures have contributed a further £850,000. Blandford will also become a non-executive director at the firm.
The company said the new funding would provide working capital to help expansion in terms of product and geography. Mfuse presently provides mobile sport-betting services to clients including Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and Stan James.
Blandford said: "I think it is an exciting company. There have obviously been some false starts in the mobile space, but I think the technology is there now."
Marcus Wareham, chief executive at Mfuse, added that he believed it was "time to scale up the business in order to cater for the inevitable increase in mobile phone activity".
The news on Blandford's investment in Mfuse follows on from his interest in bingo software supplier Parlay Entertainment. Only last week, Parlay announced that takeover talks with two possible parties had broken down. Blandford kick-started the race for Parlay when he announced a £6m offer for the firm in January, but he subsequently pulled out of the race.
Following the breakdown, Blandford said this morning he "remained interested in the bingo space" but that he would not comment any further.
