Yolo Investments Wins Abu Dhabi Regulatory Approval for $250M Fund III
Yolo Investments, the VC arm of Yolo Group, has received approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) to manage Fund III, a $250 million VC fund. This is Yolo’s first regulated VC fund outside of Europe and its largest to date.
The short version:
- The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (“FSRA of the ADGM”) has granted Yolo Investments licence to manage Fund III. Fund III will be Yolo Investments’ first fund to be domiciled outside of Europe.
- Fund III of Yolo Investments is aiming to raise $250m – more than double the €100m which the Venture Capitalist of Yolo Group managed to collect for its previous investment vehicle, Fund II, the largest investment vehicle in the history of the company.
- Series A-C investments in Fintech, Crypto and Gaming companies worldwide, with a strong focus on the MENA region.
- Fund III is targeting to raise $250m. As with the previous Fund, the plan is to start to deploy the capital as soon as the first close of the planned 12 month period takes place. For that reason, the LP subscription documents have already been finalized and are distributed among the Limited Partners.
- The Abu Dhabi fund approval for Yolo Investments comes just over four months after two Yolo Group subsidiaries, Hub88 Holdings and Live Online Gaming Services, received gaming vendor licenses from the UAE’s General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority in October 2025. Live88, which is the online live casino arm of Live Online Gaming Services, became the first online live casino studio to be licensed in the UAE, and is based from studio facilities in Abu Dhabi.
- Fund III will deploy funds immediately following the first close of the fund; Yolo Investments is finalizing the LP subscription documents for Fund III.
Yolo Investments is the venture capital arm of the operator and B2B supplier group, Yolo Group, behind brands such as Sportsbet.io, Bitcasino, Hub88, Live88 and Onetouch. The group’s investment thesis is centered around “backing entrepreneurs who move money” and in this sense, the firm acts as a convergence play between gaming, fintech and crypto. Companies in the gaming space benefit from payment solutions offered by fintech companies within the portfolio of the venture capital arm while gaming operators function as anchor customers for other companies in the portfolio.
Yolo will manage the Fund III investments as English law vehicles (similar to those of its prior Funds, i.e. Fund I and Fund II which were Guernsey domiciled vehicles however were managed in accordance with English common law). In this regard, the new Fund will be regulated by the principles-based FSRA and governed in the ADGM, allowing Yolo to manage the Fund’s portfolio in line with English common law, whilst at the same time having access to one of the world’s deepest pools of institutional capital to align with that of its limited partners (LPs).
The returns from Yolo’s previous two funds are no doubt impressive for investors. First up was the 2019 launched Yolo Investments Fund I. It held over 100 investments making up assets under management of over €600m and boasting returns of over 40% in terms of IRR for Limited Partners. Fund II subsequently targeted a €100m raise and it appears that, as of end of 2025, it has delivered a 51.6% net IRR and TVPI of 1.36 for the LPs. Yolo Investments Fund III appears to be more than simply a ‘more of the same’ style of additional assets under management for the Group’s venture capital arm, when in fact it’s a $250m planned raise – more than double the amount raised for Fund II and by far the largest in terms of intended assets under management.
The approval of the Yolo Investments’ investment fund to be set up in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and to manage the Fund III comes at a time when the Yolo Group is significantly reducing its exposure to the so-called ‘grey-market’ / ‘crypto-native’ gaming sectors and is instead focusing on investment opportunities in Gaming and associated sectors in a range of regulated jurisdictions. Recent reports in February 2026 had flagged the Yolo Group’s flagship B2C gaming brands, Sportsbet.io and Bitcasino, as being ‘on the block’ in a possible strategic refocusing of the Group onto more regulated gaming markets. Two of Yolo Group’s fully owned subsidiaries, Hub88 Holdings and Live Online Gaming Services, had in October 2025 received GCGRA vendor licenses for the UAE – Live88 had become the first online live casino studio to receive a license to operate in the country and is based in a purpose-built live dealer studio in Abu Dhabi. The approval of the investment fund here thus affords the Yolo Group a meaningful operational and financial ‘beachhead’ in the same country.
The UAE gaming market is rapidly developing and soon after Wynn Resorts announced it was to spend $2 billion on a casino resort in the country, the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority was established in 2022. Last year the UAE Lottery was launched, in November, and first gaming supplier, Aristocrat, was granted a GCGRA licence in October 2024. However, it was two years later that the first online gaming vendor licences were granted to Yolo Group subsidiaries Hub88 Holdings and Live Online Gaming Services, Hub88 being the first online B2B supplier of slots and Live88, the first licensed online live casino studio in the UAE, a live dealer studio, based in Abu Dhabi.
For the iGaming investment community a Gaming VC fund, backed by Institutional Capital that is being raised to a hard capped $250m to be domiciled in a reputable Offshore Financial Center such as the ADGM is a significant data point of relevance. Whether or not the fund raising reaches its hard cap and is done in a timely fashion is data that the iGaming investment community will be paying close attention to over the next 12 months.
Sources
- iGaming Business — Yolo Investments secures regulatory approval in Abu Dhabi for Fund III (May 26, 2026) — https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/yolo-investments-secures-regulatory-approval-abu-dhabi-fund/
- Yolo Investments Substack — Yolo Investments Fund III is cleared for launch (May 25, 2026) — https://yoloinvestments.substack.com/p/yolo-investments-fund-iii-is-cleared
- iGaming.pub — Yolo Expands UAE Ambitions with New $250M Abu Dhabi Investment Fund (May 27, 2026) — https://igaming.pub/news/yolo-expands-uae-ambitions-with-new-250m-abu-dhabi-investment/
- NEXT.io — Yolo Investments targets MENA as Abu Dhabi clears new $250m fund (May 25, 2026) — https://next.io/news/investment/yolo-investments-abu-dhabi-mena-fund/
- Gambling Insider — Yolo Group subsidiaries receive UAE vendor licences (October 2025) — https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/31496/yolo-group-subsidiaries-receive-uae-vendor-licences
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