Called Betty, the app communicates with users through messages in real time, framed in the game's timeline, either when a goal is about to happen, or providing them with crucial and timely stat that can impact the outcome, providing pre- and in-game coverage for the world's top leagues.
All thanks to "a sophisticated system of more than 150 algorithms, which allows us to offer unique details and predictions, which with perfect integration of the GPT Chat" makes Betty reach "greater proficiency in delivering predictions, analyzes and comments adapted to the user's need," says the startup in a statement.
At the same time, it is capable of translating these messages in real time into the six available languages, "ensuring a perfect and personalized experience, regardless of geographic and language barriers."
To news outlet Negócios, the founder and CEO of Odaccy Miguel Pinho reveals that, during this beta testing phase, which will last approximately "one year", Betty will be completely free to use, since the objective is to attract users to the one that appears as the startup's first project, which results from an investment "in the order of 600,000 euros" and almost three years of research and development by a team of eight people.
"For now, what we want is to have users, even from the perspective of having 'feedback' to make improvements, while we introduce new 'features," explains Pinho, adding that, afterwards, Betty will have different subscription packages, depending on the information available, the cheapest will cost 99 cents per week. Until then, that is while keeping the app's features accessible at no cost, Odaccy hopes to be able to rely on advertising to continue the project.
With an eye on the fact that "more than 60% of the 3.5 million football fans resort to mobile phones to follow the results of the games" and the growing "demand for 'insights' and personalized content," Betty was born from realization that the market lacked a differentiating product compared to the current offer, mainly based on the past. "It's always basically about what happened. There was a lack of information before and during the games," reinforces Pinho, for whom "the potential in this market is immense."
Betty has essentially three functionalities: "the forecaster (predicts when goals can happen and when the winner can change), the analytical (provides relevant and appropriate statistical data for the moment of the game) and the watcher (comments on the electrifying moments of the game, such as VAR decisions, penalties and red cards)."
The first, prediction, appears to be the most interesting, in the sense that, among others, Betty takes the risk of saying that the ball will go in, then interacting to justify an eventual failure on her part. "Let's imagine that she predicts that there will be a goal, there is a series of dangerous moves and even a shot on goal, she comments that the player had club feet and that, therefore, he was not expecting the ball to hit the crossbar. She makes comments to accompany the flow of information," emphasizes Pinho.
Indeed, according to the startup, between April and May, in the five main European leagues, the beta version of the app was 73% accurate in terms of predicting the moment of the next goal in real time.
And where is the emotion behind the bet? Miguel Pinho guarantees that he won't lose, but that he will gain another impulse: "Users will be able to play the Betty game. It will say that there will be a goal and the fans will think the it is wrong, so it ends up there is involvement, creating a game within the app itself. It will be one more variable to promote emotion."
Another competence of Betty then is to provide statistics, but so far it is different from the others, according to its creator: "People can look for game statistics in thousands of apps and 'sites' of their own, but there is none that deliver specific stats like this." And he exemplifies: "Let's imagine a FC Porto-Benfica: people know in real time that, on average, Benfica needs 3.7 shots to score a goal, so 'Betty' is delivering relevant information in real time, when before they had to look for it on 'sites' and do the math."
Betty will cover approximately two dozen football leagues, including the main European ones, as well as Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Japan, with the aim to expand to 40, by the end of 2023 and, within a year, cover "all the main championships in the world and international competitions," according to Oddacy, which wants to reach the mark of 10 million users in 2027.
It is launched on the day the Premiere League starts, the "big bet" of the app. "It's the league that has the greatest global reach and that's why we started on that day and also because, in fact, the Premiere League has always been our laboratory, whether for the development of analytics or artificial intelligence models, it always broke of the English league in its different facets which were later adapted to the rest."
Odaccy, founded approximately three years ago, is owned by Miguel Pinho and other national and foreign investors, including Elad Dror, former CEO of Fortera, recently involved in Operation Babel.
It is currently carrying out a funding round to give "a boost" to Betty with the aim of raising between 1.5 and 2 million euros by the end of October, says the founder of the startup. And, so far, "there is a lot of interest in the innovation of what Betty already does, but much more in the vision we have for it in the medium-long term," he says.
Source: GMB
