Football: Peter Lim's zujuGP bolsters app infrastructure with acquisition of gaming-tech startup

Digital football platform zujuGP co-founder Kiat Lim (centre) with the zujuDigital executive team (from left) Warren Goh, chief product officer; Mervyn Lau, chief executive officer; Benedict Goh, chief operating officer; and Matthews Chang, chief strategy officer. PHOTO: ZUJUGP

SINGAPORE - In a bid to enhance the fan's experience, digital football platform zujuGP is setting up a new arm zujuDigital to engage supporters through gamification.

Users can earn points with their favourite teams through in-app activities like commenting on forums. This gives them chances to win prizes such as a trip to watch an English Premier League match, signed jerseys, non-fungible tokens and access to exclusive meet-and-greet sessions.

To drive this, zujuGP - launched last October by Singapore billionaire Peter Lim and his son Kiat Lim and fronted by Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo - has acquired the team behind Tokigames, which helps sporting brands to engage audiences.

The 14 new hires include Tokigames co-founders Mervyn Lau, Benedict Goh, Matthews Chang, and Warren Goh, and 10 other employees.

Kiat, 29, said: "New generations of young fans experience shortening attention spans, resulting in matches that are not watched in its entirety.

"As the profile of audiences begins to shift towards a digitally savvy and gamer archetype, audiences are starting to demand a higher level of engagement and interaction with the available content to satiate valuable periods of downtime."

The Tokigames team had previously raised US$4.25 million (S$5.8 million) in seed funding to develop and launch proprietary technology for clients like One Esports and AFTV live fantasy football game.

The zujuDigital app will be available by the fourth quarter, focusing on South-east Asia, India and China.

It plans to let users watch live games, participate in trivia shows, buy merchandise, and engage with football hosts and players. It also aims to make it easier for club owners, agents and scouts to discover and develop talented players.

Lau, 37, said: "It's much clearer that the vision here is that we want to be leaders in football fandom.

"It's a lot of football sub-culture and when we talk to different fans, we realise that a lot of fans, even though they are all football fans, have different activities that they do and we want to give a holistic home where people can call home and come face to face with different content to satisfy their appetite."

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.