BETSPERTS
Betsperts Acquires Bleacher Nation
The Betsperts Group has acquired Bleacher Nation in a cash plus equity transaction, making this their 4th transaction to close in the last 18 months.
Bleacher Nation joins an impressive lineup of acquisitions made by the Betsperts Group including Matthew Berry’s Fantasy Life App, www.4for4.com, and www.Dynastyleaguefootball.com. Bleacher Nation began in 2008 as a blog focusing on the Chicago Cubs. In the last 14 years they have grown to one of the leading media outlets covering Chicago sports and major sports stories around the country.
With the addition of Bleacher Nation, Betsperts Group boasts an audience of over 25M unique users and over 225M page views in the last 12 months. Betsperts Group CEO Reid Rooney said, “Bleacher Nation has built an incredible relationship with Chicago fans and sports fans all over the world. We look forward to continuing their impressive track record of growth by expanding their content coverage and adding additional resources to support the business.”
The legacy Betsperts Group grew revenue over 350% in 2022 and the new combined group published over 25,000 articles and more than 1,200 podcasts / live streams over in 2022. Rooney also explained, “We will be profitable in 2023 which is exciting especially since we have continued to diversify our revenue streams monetizing through our subscriptions, affiliate partnerships, and advertising revenue. 2023 and 2024 will be exciting growth years for the business in revenue, profitability, and traffic.”
VP of Strategic Growth, Michael Cerami, explained why Bleacher Nation was joining Betsperts Group, “We enjoyed a shared vision for the future of Bleacher Nation, a future we wouldn’t have been able to reach without the additional support and resources of Betsperts. We are thrilled and excited to become a part of Betsperts Group, and we are confident our readers are going to love what comes next.”
When asked about what is next for Betsperts Rooney exclaimed, “We are very appreciative of all of the support and belief in our shared vision from our investors. We have already gotten significant commitments and a lead for our A2. We are excited to finalize the rest of this raise in January or February and make sure we are executing our strategy moving forward.”
Betsperts has already closed on their first $3M for their Series A2 raise after previously raising $8.6M with major investors such as Verance Capital, HBSE Ventures, Parlay Capital, Velo Partners. They also have major industry influences as part of their team like early investor David VanEgmond and Matthew Berry who also sits on the Betsperts board. The list of investors also includes athletes and celebrities such as Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Evan Longoria, Kyle Busch, Darius Rucker, Adam Wainwright, Richard Jefferson, and Jesse Itzler.
Splash Sports (Splash), the new peer-to-peer real money gaming platform from the makers of RunYourPool (RYP) and Office Football Pool (OFP), announced it is live in 33 states across the country, including Florida, Texas, and California. Now, friends and groups in these states can use Splash to organize Survivor, PickX and/or Daily Fantasy contests in accordance with state regulations.
“We are thrilled to bring Splash to the masses just in time for the NFL season. Our most frequent request on RYP/OFP is ‘can we play games for real money on your platform’ and we are excited to share that for some of our most popular games, the answer is now ‘yes’.”
The company will initially offer a Tiers game along with their popular Survivor and PickX contest products, and will continue to release additional game types and sports throughout the year.
As part of the launch, Splash has plans to reward commissioners (contest organizers) up to $2 million in total bonuses for running contests for their friends or community on the Splash Sports platform through its Commissioner Economy.
“Our commissioners are the reason people keep coming back to our site and the best contests are supplemented by the personality of the commissioner. Our rewards program draws inspiration from places like YouTube and their creators. We think of our commissioners as content creators and our contests as our content. It only makes sense to reward our commissioners for organizing compelling contests and incentivize them to run more of them. We’ve also seen a natural fit with existing content creators like sports bloggers, podcasters, Twitch streamers and existing content companies, who can become commissioners themselves, using our contests to bring their community together, engage with them, and create a new revenue stream for themselves while doing so,” said TJ Ross, Splash Sports co-founder.
This rewards program has already begun creating contests for the NFL season with some of the top commissioners on RunYourPool and OfficeFootballPool as well as industry partners such as Fantasy Pros, Playmaker, All City Sports, and Betsperts, to name a few.
Splash is owned and operated by Splash Inc., which acquired RunYourPool and Office Football Pool in 2021, and has grown to become one of the largest entertainment-only gaming providers in the US with over 2.3M active users. The company is backed by a number of leading venture firms, including Accomplice, Acies Investments, Elysian Park Ventures, Velvet Sea Ventures, and Boston Seed Capital, along with prominent angels like Theo Epstein, Doc O’Connor, Jonathan Kraft, Mike Gordon and Sam Kennedy (Fenway Sports Group), Alex Morgan (US Women’s National Team soccer star and 3x Olympian), various other sports team owners, professional sports bettors, and other investors and operators in sports, entertainment, and tech.
BETSPERTS CEO and co-founder Reid Rooney announced that BETSPERTS has just closed a second seven-figure fundraising round in 2020. BETSPERTS is the largest US-based social media platform dedicated to sports gambling. This round includes some new investors to BETSPERTS including UK-based Velo Partners leading the round.
Evan Hoff, Partner at Velo Capital Partners LLP, was quoted saying, “Velo is extremely excited to be partnering with BETSPERTS in the next leg of their start-up journey, which combines deep domain knowledge with great passion for sports. Sports gamblers are faced with massive amounts of data and a virtually endless array of betting events, creating a strong need for solutions that cut through the noise. By giving consumers access to verified experts, encapsulated in an intuitive UI, BETSPERTS is poised to take advantage of the explosive growth the sector is experiencing.”
Also, in this fundraising round are investors such as Numeria Capital led by Jason Searfoss, Bettor Capital led by Dave VanEgmond, and various other angel investors.
“With the investments in 2020 we have the opportunity to scale at a greater rate and capitalize on the rapid growth of our target market. We are going to invest in the product and technology while providing our loyal users more tools and assets for them to enjoy their betting experiences. We continue to actively listen to our users and enhance their daily experience with our platform,” Reid Rooney said.
Gambling.com Group Reports Third Quarter 2024 Results and Raises 2024 Guidance
Huge Jackpot at King Billy Casino: C$3,658,306!
Play’n GO announces landmark partnership with Resorts Digital Gaming
Exclusive Q&A w/ Radek Pšurný, CEO at Match Hype
Aristocrat Announces the Sale of the Plarium Mobile Gaming Business to Modern Times Group for an Enterprise Value of up to $820M
Spinomenal celebrates Halloween with Book of the Cursed release
QiH Group completes C-suite hiring spree with new CFO appointment
Evoplay enters Czech market with exclusive Fortuna collaboration
Sweet Success: Just Slots Launches Its Debut Game, Sugar Heaven
Peter & Sons- Maths and Mechanics
-
gaming2 years agoODIN by 4Players: Immersive, state-of-the-art in-game audio launches into the next generation of gaming
-
EEG iGaming Directory8 years ago
iSoftBet continues to grow with new release Forest Mania
-
News7 years ago
Softbroke collaborates with Asia Live Tech for the expansion of the service line in the igaming market
-
News6 years ago
Super Bowl LIII: NFL Fans Can Bet on the #1 Sportsbook Review Site Betting-Super-Bowl.com, Providing Free Unbiased and Trusted News, Picks and Predictions
-
iGaming Industry7 years ago
Rick Meitzler appointed to the Indian Gaming Magazine Advisory Board for 2018
-
News6 years ago
REVEALED: Top eSports players set to earn $3.2 million in 2019
-
iGaming Industry7 years ago
French Senator raises Loot Boxes to France’s Gambling Regulator
-
News7 years ago
Exclusive Interview with Miklos Handa (Founder of the email marketing solutions, “MailMike.net”), speaker at Vienna International Gaming Expo 2018
