Crypto betting startup Frontrunner raises $4.75m in round led by Susquehanna
Decentralized sports prediction market platform allows users to buy and sell teams like stocks
Crypto betting startup Frontrunner announced on December 14 that it has completed a $4.75m fundraising round, with Susquehanna Private Equity Investments LLP leading the round.
Joining Susquehanna were Soma Capital, Gilgamesh Ventures, FBG Capital, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, Toy Ventures, Gaingels, Ledger Prime, WAGMI Ventures, and NOA Capital.
Frontrunner will use the capital to scale its product and engineering team, streamline product development and expand its licensing agreements.
A decentralized sports prediction market platform, Frontrunner allows users to trade sports teams and players like stocks, buying in and out of positions throughout a game or a season.
Founded by CEO Neil Zhang, the inspiration for Frontrunner was born out of a futures bet Zhang made on the 49ers to win the Super Bowl in 2019. Zhang realized he had limited options with which to leverage the bet, despite San Francisco making it all the way to the Big Game that year.
“The way that sports betting is, you’re basically having this relationship where the sports bettors are competing against the book directly,” Zhang said in a recent interview with The Block.
“And in that case, the book or the bookie is not incentivized to give users the best price based on liquidity. It really seems like a much more inefficient market when there’s only a single source of your odds and your ability to buy or sell bets.”
With Frontrunner, users can treat their bets like a portfolio of assets, tracking their performance and buying and/or selling positions on its trading interface.
Frontrunner, which is built in the Cosmos ecosystem, utilizes smart contracts to deploy its trading functionality, with users transacting in crypto.
It currently offers trading on popular leagues such as the NFL, NBA, and EPL, and it has plans to add MLB and esports leagues like CS:GO and League of Legends as soon as early 2023.
Frontrunner also intends to roll out ETF-style offerings, which would give users the ability to invest in portfolios of entire teams, divisions, and ownership groups.