A fresh injection of cash for microwagering trailblazer Betr comes as the operator of mobile sports betting apps is poised to expand into same-game parlays, new states, and additional gambling opportunities.
Miami-based Betr Holdings Inc. announced another funding round Tuesday, with this $35 million “Series A2” financing valuing the company at approximately $300 million before the new money.
The funding is in addition to the $50 million Betr, which conducts mobile sports betting and media operations, raised in 2022 from a wide range of investors.
A handful of investors also participated in the latest round, including Betr co-founders Joey Levy and Jake Paul, as well as Fuel Venture Capital pumping $10 million into the company for a second time. The financing’s final closing is expected next quarter.
“I am thrilled to announce our Series A2 round of financing, which we opportunistically raised after successfully laying the foundations for Betr Gaming and Betr Media while validating some of our core theses,” said Levy, who is also the company’s CEO, in a press release. “Our ability to rapidly scale Betr Media’s audience, and then convert this audience to Betr Gaming at low-to-no-[customer acquisition cost], will enable us to have the best unit economics in the regulated real money gaming industry, positioning Betr to create more value than incumbent operators over time.”
Big plans
With fresh cash in hand, Betr is preparing to expand its legal sports betting business. Not only will there be more things for users to bet on, but, eventually, there will be more places in which the operator can take bets.
Betr the sportsbook is already live with its brand of simplified microbetting in Massachusetts and Ohio. Launches in Virginia, Indiana, and beyond are on the horizon, but Levy said they are not yet prepared to announce those new markets.
“In the background, we've been securing market access in several additional jurisdictions, and we'll be announcing those when we're ready,” he told Covers in an interview.
From micro to macro
And, although Betr did start with a microbetting focus, taking bets on the outcome of the next pitch in baseball or drive in football, it is adding more traditional sports betting markets to the app. That is being done with the help of the recent acquisition of a wagering platform from FansUnite Entertainment Inc.
Additional offerings will include “pre-match and in-play core markets, parlays, same game parlays, futures, props, and other bet types, along with 20+ additional sports,” the company said. Levy said some “core markets” have already been added to the Betr app, but it won’t be until the first half of 2024 that the full slate of offerings is available.
Levy said microbetting and same-game parlays are “the two fastest-growing product verticals” in online sports betting. It’s just that Betr lacks the latter, which could lead its customers to seek out SGPs with a rival.
“If we're paying the same licensing fees and set-up fees as FanDuel, DraftKings, etc., but consumers have to go to FanDuel if they want to place a parlay, then that's just an inherent disadvantage that I'm no longer interested in having,” Levy told Covers.
Betr has made responsible gaming a cornerstone of its value proposition, as the bookmaker does not accept credit cards and imposes mandatory deposit limits for users between the ages of 21 and 25. There is more to come on the RG front too, the company claims. Online casino gambling, or iGaming, may also be in the cards for the future.
“In addition to [online sports betting], Betr Gaming will be unveiling two additional real money gaming verticals, which will be announced over the coming weeks and months, signifying the Company’s commitment to diversification and innovation within the gaming industry,” Betr said Tuesday.
Early innings
Levy said Betr was not prepared to talk about the additional gaming verticals at this time but will be ready to discuss one of them “over the next few weeks.”
Yet even with a high-profile social media star and boxer like Paul on board, the company is relatively small in the world of legal sports betting. In Massachusetts, for instance, Betr took just $592,965.60 in wagers during May (although the company launched in the state about midway through the month); DraftKings, meanwhile, led the market with $221.1 million in handle.
It is still early days for Betr, though. The company is proving its business model and is competing with rivals with deeper pockets. Levy noted, for instance, that DraftKings and FanDuel spent more on free bets and other promotional credits in January alone in Ohio than Betr has raised from investors in its lifetime by around a factor of three.
“I view the industry today as being very nascent,” Levy told Covers. “I think there's a lot of prospective sports bettors on the sidelines right now and we are positioning Betr to be the most attractive destination for those sports fans.”
***immediately bets LSU to bring it home tonight*** pic.twitter.com/CD3CpFGDJ5
— betr (@betr) June 26, 2023
In the meantime, the playbook for Betr is to offer an easy-to-understand sportsbook and let the significant social media presence of it and its co-founder, Paul, help it acquire customers at a lower cost.
Levy called their content arm the “fastest-growing sports betting media brand in the United States,” at least in terms of social media. The company says more than 20% of its estimated audience in Ohio has converted to sportsbook users.
“We’re just not paying a material amount of money for customers,” Levy said. “There's been no signs that we're slowing down. If anything, we're only improving. For example, in Massachusetts, our customer acquisition metrics are more advanced than they were in Ohio at this time.”
