Kindred Group

Kindred Group was founded as Unibet by Anders Ström from his small flat in London, driven by a simple yet disruptive philosophy: "By players, for players." Ström, an expert handicapper and sports analyst, wanted to build a digital platform that shared deep technical data and transparent insights with its users rather than operating as an opaque, predatory bookmaker. The company secured an early UK bookmaking license, taking sports wagers over the phone before launching one of Europe's earliest, cleanest web-based sportsbooks.

Unibet listed publicly on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, triggering an era of aggressive international expansion and structural corporate acquisitions, including Maria Casino and 32Red. To accurately reflect its massive structural transition from a single consumer sportsbook into a multi-brand, highly global technology holding company, the parent corporation permanently rebranded itself as Kindred Group in 2016. The group built a sophisticated, central cloud-based computing engine code-named Kambi (which was later spun off into an elite public B2B sports data provider).

In an unprecedented, highly controversial corporate move that deeply shocked the high-volume gambling sector, Kindred publicly committed to a long-term goal code-named the "Journey Towards Zero." The group pledged to completely eliminate all corporate revenues derived from harmful, high-risk problem gambling behaviors through systematic platform transparency. The firm deployed highly advanced, automated behavioral AI tracking systems called PS-EDS to intercept high-volume gamblers, prioritizing structural ESG compliance over raw short-term turnover.

In January 2024, French state-backed lottery and gaming giant La Française des Jeux (FDJ) launched a staggering, definitive cash tender offer to fully acquire Kindred Group for a massive €2.6 billion valuation. The transaction was engineered to create one of Europe's largest consolidated omni-channel digital gambling conglomerates. The acquisition received widespread backing from Kindred's activist institutional shareholders, who recognized that increasing European compliance fragmentation required immense corporate scale to survive.

By mid-2026, Kindred Group successfully finalized its complex structural integration into the broader FDJ corporate framework, contributing over €1.4 billion in annual high-margin digital turnover to the combined group. Operating as a hyper-efficient international digital operating engine, Kindred's core Unibet brand successfully expanded its footprints across highly regulated European zones. The tech asset leveraged its automated data science stacks to maintain ironclad compliance.