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ZEAL Investments partners with MassChallenge UK

Seed-stage investment company ZEAL Investments has partnered with MassChallenge UK, a start-up accelerator.

The partnership gives ZEAL Investments the opportunity to plug itself into the vast array of start-up companies involved in MassChallenge’s accelerator programme.
 
James Oakes, director of ZEAL Investments, says: “With only 5 per cent of the USD250 billion lottery market currently played online, there is a huge opportunity for the industry to fully digitise and become a relevant part of peoples’ online and mobile lives.”
 
Christine Thoma, head of strategy at ZEAL Investments, added: “Our partnership with MassChallenge UK will help us to identify start-ups with unique ideas that can move the industry forward. With so many innovations happening in other industries, we are excited to see what can be brought to life in the lottery sector.”
 
“The knowledge and experience James and Christine bring from ZEAL Investments is incredibly beneficial to our start-ups,” says Diane Perlman, chief marketing officer at MassChallenge. “ZEAL Investments’ strategic and entrepreneurial experience alone makes them very valuable partners to work with.”
 
ZEAL Investments hosted its first event with MassChallenge UK on 11 October. It brought together start-ups from the current accelerator programme and around 20 employees from different areas of ZEAL Network SE. Nine start-ups pitched a variety of different businesses, ranging from chat bots disrupting insurance sales, to digitalising the learning process for Braille, to turning the humble cow into a new asset class. The next event is planned for early 2017.
 
Oakes says: “This was a great event to kick-off our partnership and very beneficial for all concerned – a good opportunity for start-ups to pitch and receive feedback, and for our ZEAL colleagues to be exposed to the ideas and passion of the start-up world. We are very excited about this partnership and look forward to developing it over the next months.”

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