Nigel Eccles, founder of daily fantasy sports service and Scottish tech unicorn, FanDuel, has announced that he is leaving the firm to eye up his next project. Eccles made the declaration that he was stepping down as chairman and departing the firm publicly via his Twitter on Monday, which was also his last day.

According to news sources, Eccles has been considering different options, including a new startup, ever since FanDuel and rival fantasy sports site DraftKings agreed to a merger late last year. But this summer the deal was blocked after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cited that the unified company would control 90% of the US market.

Shortly after, the FanDuel UK site (launched in August 2016) shuttered its services for the 2017-2018 season, apparently to allow the firm to focus on its core US market. The site currently reads: “Unfortunately, we will not be offering contests in the UK this season. We hope to be back in the future, bringing you more of the games you love.”

Today, Eccles announced that he would continue to be based in the US, but the new team for his mystery project would be composed of Scotland-based software engineers and game developers. Eccles is quoted as saying: “I want to build an engineering team in Scotland. I’ve got a really deep affinity with Scotland, which has some of the best software engineers in the world and deep talent in games development.

“I’m in New York but I’ll build the engineering team probably in Edinburgh.”

Eccles is apparently attempting to replicate the success of FanDuel with his next venture, which became Scotland’s first tech unicorn when it was valued at $1 billion during a fundraising round in 2015.

Admitting that he had “mixed emotions” about leaving the business, Eccles added: “There always comes a time when it’s time to move on”. Post the merger [being abandoned] I said to everyone [that] you have to ask yourselves if you are committed and is this what you want to do in the next three to four years. I also had to ask it of myself and I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

“I knew I wanted to go and build another entrepreneurial company.”

Currently, Eccles still owns shares in the business, alongside majority stakeholders Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). KKR became one of the one of the firms behind FanDuel’s $1 billion valuation, after putting $275 million behind the company.

Matt King, Former KKR Director who also served as FanDuel’s Chief Financial Officer between 2014 and 2016, replaced Eccles as CEO following his departure. Meanwhile, FanDuel is also adding two more people to its board: Carl Vogel, Former Vice-Chairman and President of Dish Network, is joining as Chairman; and David Nathanson, a former executive of Fox Sports who left the company this fall. No other FanDuel employees so far have departed with Eccles, and as yet he has not sought any financial backing.

Eccles concluded that, currently, he is, “focused on building up the product”, adding that, “once we have that we want to scale it and make it really big”.

“Right now we want to focus on building a platform that really resonates”.