Five-year-old fantasy and sports betting company Underdog is the newest unicorn created by the sports betting boom, as a new round of funding has valued the business at $1.23 billion.
In a press release Wednesday, the company said it had firm commitments on $70 million of what it expects will end up being a $100 million fundraising round. The new valuation is almost triple the value placed on the business three years ago.
The $1.23 billion mark makes Underdog the seventh fantasy sports betting “unicorn”—a startup valued at more than $1 billion by venture capital—and the first in sports betting in three years, according to data compiled by Tracxn, which collects data on global VC and private equity investments.
The other sports wagering unicorns? FanDuel in 2015; DraftKings in 2016; Sorare in 2021; and three India-based companies—Dream11, MPL and Games24x7, in 2019, ’21 and ’22, respectively, according to Tracxn data.
Underdog’s latest investment round is led by Spark Capital, a Massachusetts- and California-based firm. The $70 million infusion is the largest Silicon Valley investment in sports betting, Underdog said in the press release. Spark was an early investor in Twitter and counts upstart sports league operator Overtime, Slack and Discord among its portfolio of 50-odd businesses.
In the release, Underdog founder and CEO Jeremy Levine said the business will use the new capital to invest in talent and product “as fast as we can.”
Underdog says it is the fourth most-downloaded app in sports and sports betting, and its two-year-old program Gil’s Arena is the fifth-largest daily sports program measured across all media. Last year the company launched Coach, with Bill Belichick, though it’s unclear if the show is continuing with Belichick now the head football coach of the University of North Carolina. A spokesperson for Underdog wasn’t immediately able to comment.
In 2022, Underdog raised $35 million in a round led by BlackRock and Acies Investments. Levine is no stranger to starting fantasy-related businesses. He previously formed and eventually sold two startups to FanDuel and DraftKings.
(The headline has been adjusted to identify Underdog as primarily a fantasy sports site.)
