eSports Sites Raising Big Money for Fantasy, Betting: Vulcun, Unikrn, AlphaDraft
It’s yet another aspect of the Daily Fantasy Sports phenomenon, eSports, with the three main players announcing additional monies raised over the past few months.
Vulcan, the biggest of the bunch, says it managed to raise $13.4m (£8.6m) and paid out over $1.1m (£713,000) in prize money to over 117,000 fans in its opening three months.
So much of the focus with eSports is on the fantasy side but betting options have also begun to emerge, mostly outside North America.
Ali Moiz' Vulcun has positioned itself as the leader in the eSports fantasy market.
“Since fantasy sports is a game of skill, it allows sports fans that really get into it to consistently win over time.”
Unikrn and AlphaDraft are not exactly slouches either.
Alphabet aims to have over one million active users by the end of 2015 with $5m (£3.2m) in cash and prizes to be awarded by year’s end.
Where is that money coming from?
David Stern; the former NBA Commissioner, Greycroft, Metaphorphic, WME, Upfront, IDG, KEC, and MV have each contributed a total of $4.2m (£2.7m) to the company.
Unikrn CEO and co-founder, Rahul Sood, says his company has raised more than $3m (£1.9m), with a over $5m (£3.2m) committed. Unikrn has entered into an exclusive deal with Australian wagering firm Tabcorp.
Unikrn was built on an online community of close to 10 million gamers. With the Tabcorp relationship, the company’s focus tends to be more on the wagering element, and with good reason.
“Obviously there is a learning curve associated with betting on eSports,’ Sood told SBC News. “But as you’ll see with our future products we’ll be able to address this and make it accessible to anyone in a legal jurisdiction to participate.”
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
