The ZenSports team is thrilled to announce today that we’ve closed a new $1.46M Seed round of funding! This funding will be used to expand into the United States, to begin growing our enterprise product offering, and to continue growing our international consumer business. Investors in the new round include previous investors LAUNCH (led by Jason Calacanis), as well as new investors Cube Magic Gaming and other individual angels.
We initially set out to only raise $1M back in May, and we ended up being 46% over-subscribed for this round. Furthermore, we were able to raise this funding during a pandemic when very few sports were even being played — we raised a bulk of this new round of funding over the summer prior to American sports even returning. This shows just how excited investors are about the opportunity and how well-positioned ZenSports is to grow within the sports betting industry.
Traction is King
After launching our peer-to-peer sports betting app internationally in March 2019, ZenSports has been on a fast growth trajectory. Over 25,000 bets have been accepted and over $12M in betting volume have been processed through our app. We’ve continued to expand our product offerings, including the launch of our own cryptocurrency token called SPORTS, the launch of a new enterprise product suite, and expansion into Esports betting.
Most importantly, we signed a deal last month with Strategic Gaming Management for the option to purchase the Big Wheel Casino in Lovelock, Nevada, which will allow ZenSports to operate our peer-to-peer mobile sports betting app anywhere in the state once we gets licensed there.
As such, ZenSports is now turning its attention to the Nevada licensing process, which should take 6 to 9 months to complete. We’ve retained Lewis Roca to obtain all of the necessary licenses to operate the Big Wheel Casino and the ZenSports mobile app in the state. While the licensing process is lengthy, it’s well worth it because $5.3B was wagered on sports in Nevada last year alone, of which about half of that was on mobile. It’s a huge opportunity once we’re licensed and operational there.
We are also in talks with other casinos across the U.S. about reaching similar deals to the one with Strategic Gaming Management, which will give both ZenSports and its casino partners a mobile sports betting presence in their states. ZenSports has several enterprise deals in the works that it is looking to close this year, as well as continuing its international growth. We have a lot going on, but we have a terrific team to execute on all of these initiatives.
This new funding gives us the stability and financial backing necessary to capitalize on the tremendous opportunity in the United States sports betting market. We couldn’t be more excited to be a front runner in the $100B+ mobile sports betting and payments world. This is just the beginning for us.
About ZenSports
ZenSports is a mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace where anyone in any legal market in the world can create and accept sports bets with anyone else in any legal market in the world, without the need for a centralized bookmaker. Consumers can quickly and easily create their own bets with their own odds and terms, or accept bets that others in the marketplace have created, all at a fraction of the cost that traditional bookmakers charge and all right from their phone.
In addition, ZenSports has created an API that enterprise businesses can use to integrate cryptocurrency payments and rewards into its product offerings, including USD stable coins and its proprietary SPORTS token. This gives enterprise clients a significantly faster, cheaper, and more secure way for processing payments compared to traditional processing methods like debit/credit cards, ACH payments, and wire transfers.
ZenSports is available for download in both the App Store (iOS) and the ZenSports website (Android), and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
ZenSports Media Kit:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QdPiGA0nC5sv-Dk7kysL-abKe0gfsnBI?usp=sharing
