Dubai's ID8 acquires fantasy cricket platform Fanzania in global expansion play

What's the deal? Dubai-based digital product company Ideate FZCO (ID8)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has fully acquired FanzaniaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a fantasy cricket platform built by five founders over five years. Terms were undisclosed. ID8 plans to take the platform global.

What each side brings: Fanzania is a working platform with live scoring, league management, team selection logic, a rewards engine, and native Android and iOS apps. Its founders — Sameerkumar Vora, Neeraj Kumar Sinha, Rajib Das, Jattin Kapoor, and Guruprasad Poojari — built it without a large team or institutional backing.

ID8 builds digital products designed to scale, with a portfolio spanning AI-native HRMS (ScreeqDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →) and CRM (Axon) SaaS platforms.

Why Fanzania? "We did not acquire a product, we acquired a community," said Praveen Pinto. Cricket draws over a billion fans across South Asia, the Caribbean, and the UK, yet ID8 argues the sport remains underpenetrated outside a handful of incumbent fantasy platforms.

What's the endgame? ID8 plans a rebuilt technology foundation for scale, expansion beyond Fanzania's current markets, and a product roadmap centred on fan engagement rather than registrations or downloads. The platform's architecture supports Test matches, ODIs, T20s, The Hundred, and franchise leagues across six countries.

The stated vision: a fan in Dubai competing in the same league as someone in Manchester and someone in Colombo, all following the same match.

The signal: Fantasy sports is one of the fastest-growing segments in digital entertainment, and cricket's passionate but under-served fanbase is an obvious target. ID8's move is a bet that a fan-first product, built by people who know the game, can carve out space against established incumbents.

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