Fantasy Life, the fantasy sports activities and betting media property based by Matthew Berry, reportedly closed a $2 million financing spherical led by a number of skilled athletes and celebrities.
NBC Sports activities fantasy analyst Matthew Berry. His firm, Fantasy Life, secured $2 million in funding. (Picture: Yahoo Sports activities)
Axios broke information of the “family and friends spherical” earlier Tuesday. Taking part buyers embrace Buffalo Payments quarterback Josh Allen, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and his favourite goal, huge receiver Ja’Marr Chase, Los Angeles Chargers working again Austin Ekeler, and singer John Legend.
LRMR Ventures, the household workplace of Lebron James and entrepreneur Maverick Carter, had been additionally concerned within the financing spherical. Jacksonville Jaguars proprietor Tony Khan additionally invested in Berry’s firm, as did Miami Marlins coowner Roger Ehrenberg. Startups with ties to the sports activities betting business have lengthy attracted group homeowners, with now publicly traded DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) and Sportradar (NASDAQ: SRAD) among the many examples.
Berry based Fantasy Life in 2020, naming the corporate after his 2013 e book by the identical title. Final 12 months, he departed ESPN for NBC Sports activities as a result of the Comcast unit promised him latitude and help to construct out Fantasy Life.
Fantasy Life Checks Vital Startup Containers
Though it’s a younger firm, Fantasy Life is conducting some issues that many rising development companies wrestle with: it’s working in lean vogue (it has 13 staffers) and it’s already worthwhile.
Berry instructed Axios the corporate is producing seven figures in income yearly. The majority of these gross sales are sourced through ads. Advertisements at present on the location embrace these from BetMGM and Underdog Fantasy, amongst others. At the moment, Fantasy Life’s content material is free, although Berry famous to Axios that it’s doable the location will characteristic some premium choices sooner or later.
There’s precedent for each day and season-long fantasy sports activities members paying for lineup-building recommendation. And the sports activities wagering area has an extended historical past of retail bettors paying for picks. However there’s additionally vital subscriber churn in these segments.
Fantasy Life options an array of free instruments for bettors and fantasy gamers alike, together with parlay calculators, participant prop projections, commerce scores, fantasy rankings, and extra.
Fantasy Life Attracts Different Buyers, Too
Along with the aforementioned stars who participated within the Fantasy Life funding spherical, “conventional” buyers concerned within the financing embrace gaming analyst Chris Grove, Bruin Capital CEO George Pyne, non-public fairness investor and former Cleveland Browns president Alec Scheiner, investor and operator Jason Stein, and FOX Wager CEO Kip Levin, in line with Axios.
Grove is a managing associate at Acies Investments, which lists 22 portfolio corporations on its web site, together with Underdog Fantasy and Jefebet.com.
