Sharp Alpha Advisors Ready to Bet on Sports Betting Startups
Sharp Alpha Advisors, a specialist in sports betting startups, venture capital, M&A and technology, announced today the final closing of its Sharp Alpha Fund I aimed to support early-stage sports betting technology suppliers.
US Sports Betting Ripe for Investment
The $10-million venture capital fund that has already invested into 11 sports betting startups, including Players’ Lounge, GridRival, PickUp and Prophet, is offering Seed and Series A financings of initial allocations of around $250,000, with future rounds eventually providing follow-on support for the early-stage businesses.
A co-investment vehicle held by Sharp Alpha Advisors is allowing limited partners to make additional capital investments alongside the fund. So far, the co-investment vehicle saw the firm make initial allocations of over $1 million.
The sports betting industry is expected to grow significantly in the following years, with investment bank Goldman Sachs projecting annual revenues from wagering on sports to hit $40 billion by 2033, and Sharp Alpha managing partner Lloyd Danzig believes now is the moment for early-stage investments.
Not only is the sports betting industry at an inflection point, but market leaders are choosing to buy rather than build at every turn. With M&A serving as the primary mechanism through which operators achieve differentiation and vertical integration, it is a great time to underwrite next-gen infrastructure.”
Lloyd Danzig, Managing Partner, Sharp Alpha Advisors
Cross-Industry Advisory Board
The advisory board of the fund features prominent figures from the sports, entertainment and financial industries, including former COO of Elliott Management and Global Head of Leveraged Finance at Merrill Lynch Keith Horn, former Chairman of Empire Resorts Emanuel Pearlman, former CCO at Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment and CRO of the New Jersey Devils Adam Davis.
Daniel Bernard, Venture Partner at Mindspring Capital and Chairman of Redwood International Sports, Roy Behren, a former enforcement attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and now president and CIO of multibillion-dollar merger arbitrage asset manager, and the Vice Chairman of Caesars Entertainment, Don Kornstein, complete the fund’s advisory board.
Senior executives from investment banks, hedge funds and publicly traded betting companies feature as limited partners in the fund, which is also backed by some institutional investors like Great Elm Group and the Dutch Sport Tech Fund, several multibillion-dollar venture capital funds, family offices and private equity groups.
Sharp Alpha provides a host of advisory services and strategic resources, in addition to financial investments, directly linking companies to critical components of a startup’s success like sources of revenue, brand awareness and future funding.
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