London-based startup Squawka have announced they are entering the fantasy sports market with the release of a new free-to-play product called Battle Mode.

Squawka, the digital football companion, recently named one of the ‘Fastest Growing Businesses’ in The UK by Smarta and Santander, already attracts 200,000 unique users a day across its web and mobile properties. Over the course of the 2013/14 league season the team saw users from over 27,000 different cities around the world. Squawka recently closed their Series A funding in April 2014 and are currently on a rapid product release cycle to capitalize on the opportunity of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil this summer with a focus on the fantasy market.

Battle Mode is a suite of mini-games that use real-time visualizations, leaderboards and a chat functionality to build immersive social game experiences. Squawka have developed five distinct game types which range from Passalona – in which users must choose five players they believe will successfully pass the ball the furthest, to Balls Out – guessing which five players will kick the ball out of play the most, to the imaginatively titled Game of Throw-Ins in which the user must choose the players that will concede the highest number of throw-ins during the match.

Squawka Product Director Rikkesh Mistry described the engagement strategies the team are exploring;

“All of the games visualize the match data and player progress in real-time alongside constantly updating leaderboards for the user to track their rankings in either their own private leagues or the global league of all players. We also included chat functionality to enable fans to ‘trash talk’ throughout the games whilst they decide on in-game substitutions or a change of captain.”

The Fantasy Sports market is estimated to be worth around $70 billion to the media and sports industry (Forbes) and Squawka CEO & co-founder Sanjit Atwal believes their expertise of both real-time data visualizations and fan engagement will enable them to tackle the market in a new way.

“Ever since we launched Squawka.com two years ago people have been asking us when we are going to build fantasy games for football. With our expertise on real-time data and building engaging fan experiences it makes total sense for us to not only enter the market but to also tackle it in our own unique style.”

The addition of fantasy games is seen as a pivotal aspect of the company’s growth over the coming years and the team is also looking to use the methodology of real-time games as a launch pad for new sports across Squawka.

Battle Mode will be officially launched at London Technology Week on June 16^th to coincide with the Germany versus Portugal World Cup match.

Interested parties can attend the London Technology Week Battle Mode session, to be held at the offices advertising agency BBH in Soho (London), by requesting an invitation at info@squawka.com. More information about the event can be found here: http://londontechnologyweek.co.uk/2014/05/second-screening-world-cup-live/