【Christmas demo casino】NYC 2025: How Karolina Pelc built BeyondPlay with one goal

“I absolutely built the company to sell it,” Pelc revealed at the NEXT Summit New York 2025, where she spoke alongside Tom Waterhouse, Matt Restivo, and Jai Maw on the “Built to Sell” panel.

Pelc launched BeyondPlay, a B2B software development company specialising in engagement technology, in 2021.

Just three years later, in 2024, the company was acquired by Flutter-owned FanDuel, one of the industry’s biggest players.

“I had a mindset from the beginning that I needed to build the company in a way that would be sellable,” she explained during the panel.

“However, I thought we were going to be bought by a B2B business because we were a B2B business, and there wasn’t much history of B2C acquiring B2B businesses.”

A strategic decision

With the “easiest potential exit strategy” in mind, Pelc focused the business on regulated markets.

Rather than taking the easier route of entering unregulated markets for quicker revenue, she pursued a more complex path.

“We could have gone into unregulated markets and tried to take money from easier-to-convince sources, but we chose the hard path,” she said.

“So that we had the least path of resistance if a public or regulated company wanted to acquire the firm.”

The team developed an entirely new multiplayer product, which fell into regulatory grey areas.

Instead of staying under the radar, however, they decided to pursue the necessary licences — a strategic decision influenced by the significant PR attention they were receiving.

Then, to diversify, the company introduced a jackpot product.

Unlike their multiplayer innovation, this was a proven concept with an established customer base. They knew how to build it, they knew there was demand, and they knew they needed a licence immediately.

From that moment, raising capital meant finding investors who could navigate the complexities of licensing in key jurisdictions, including the UK, Malta, Ontario, and several US states.

“When I was raising our second funding round of over €4m, I had to shoot myself every investor meeting, starting with, ‘Have you gone through New Jersey licensing?’

“That’s where 50% would fall off. Then, ‘Have you gone through UKGC licensing?’ That’s where another 25% would fall off,” she recalled.

In the end, only a handful of investors remained — those willing to go through the regulatory process with the company.

But the effort paid off. In February 2024, BeyondPlay was acquired by FanDuel for an undisclosed sum.

The integration process

Selling BeyondPlay to Flutter was just the first step. Next came the challenge of integrating a fast-moving start-up into a global corporation.

“It’s not an easy process,” Pelc admitted. “I had some advantage because I’ve worked in corporate environments. So, none of the processes or integration-related matters at FanDuel were a surprise to me.

“But, how do I bring the team on board with that?”

Pelc acknowledged that many members of her team — especially the technical talent — joined BeyondPlay because they wanted to work at a start-up, not be part of a corporate acquisition.

A key part of her role was helping them see the opportunities this transition created.

“We had access to better equipment, as well as finance and operational support.”

Still, the transition had its personal challenges for Pelc as a founder.

“Probably the biggest challenge for the founder is that you do feel a bit more detached from the team because you’re losing a little bit of control.

“You’re handing over responsibility, and it’s intentional, because as a founder who is eventually going to move on, you have a moral responsibility to the buyer to remove that level of attachment and dependency between the team and yourself.

“You want the team to be attached to their new home and see themselves there long term, whether you’re in it or not, right?”

Pelc added: “It’s actually counterintuitive because as a founder, you want to be close to your team, and you want to act as their mother and possibly their ambassador. But for the past six or seven months, I’ve been trying to show them that I’m co-parenting with someone else.”

Paying it forward

Now, Pelc is shifting her focus towards educating and inspiring other founders. She is writing a book about her journey, offering an unfiltered look at both the glamorous and not-so-glamorous sides of building a company.

“My story is a typical zero-to-hero journey,” she said, pointing to her humble past experience as a croupier on a cruise ship.

By sharing her story, Pelc hopes to show others — especially women — that it can be done.