Betfair hires ex-Yahoo exec to drive mobile biz

Raj Vemulapalli joins as VP of mobile engineering at firm's new mobile centre of excellence in Silicon Valley.

One of the founding members for Yahoo!’s Real Time Communications division, Vemulapalli will develop new mobile products and services for what is the world's largest gambling company.

Betfair has was the first company to have a betting app listed in the Apple App Store for both the iPhone and iPad, and recently open up its APIs – launching a revenue sharing initiative for third party developers who build it into their products.

Tony McAlister, CTO of Betfair, said: “Mobile is a hugely important channel for us and I am delighted that Raj has decided to join Betfair at a time where there is a real opportunity to reinforce our market leading position in the mobile space.

"Raj has a track record of delivering global products, building teams and has experience managing open APIs, a development route which is significant to our mobile strategy going forward.”