“Go-to” tool in daily fantasy and legal sports betting increasing funding to $4.7M
Wednesday April 4th 2018 — Mobile-first direct-to-consumer sports data and analytics company RotoQL (http://rotoql.com/) announced today a $3M seed round (bringing total funds raised to $4.7M). The most recent round was led by an early FanDuel investor, Karlani Capital. Boston Seed Capital, Velo Partners, Azure Capital, Oakvale Capital and sports information provider Don Best also participated in the round. RotoQL has previously raised capital from notable angels including David Stern, former commissioner of the NBA, and Ralph Topping, the ex-CEO of William Hill.
The injection of capital will be used to accelerate growth of their existing business lines which include data products aimed at the daily fantasy and season long fantasy markets. The proceeds will also go towards launching BetQL, an analytics platform for sports betting. BetQL will focus on providing data designed to aid players in “bet discovery” — guiding them to the value on the betting board. The product will be launched against the possibility of a positive ruling in favor of New Jersey to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA.
“We see it as an over $6 billion annual opportunity in the U.S. regulated sports betting market by 2023 with only a subset of states participating,”said Justin Park, CEO and Founder of RotoQL. “The industry will need to reduce the friction for bettors who are currently wagering through offshore services, and especially address new bettors who are not wagering at all because they view it as too complicated.”
Benjie Cherniak, President at Don Best, says,“RotoQL has established itself as a leader in the B2C fantasy space, as evidenced by their rapid growth and passionate user base. With legalized US sports wagering set to become a reality in the months ahead, RotoQL is perfectly positioned to penetrate the B2C sports betting space via their unique mobile-first offering, BetQL. This is a textbook example of the right product at the right time in the right place.” Although the business has generated subscription revenue exclusively to date, as they continue to amass a database of sports bettors, the startup is open to diversifying through affiliate revenues in the future.
RotoQL’s first two products, the eponymous RotoQL and SquadQL, help level the playing field in both daily fantasy and season long fantasy sports respectively. Both product lines have earned the trust of casual players by empowering them, through easy-to-digest data, to compete with elite players who spend copious amounts of time researching. One customer, Michael Sugar, an Academy Award winning film producer says: “I stumbled upon RotoQL as I started playing DFS, as a hobby. I find the tool to be an invaluable resource for me, and have generated substantial income ever since.”
About RotoQL
RotoQL is a direct-to-consumer sports data and analytics business. Headquartered in New York, NY, the sports-tech company has three product lines: RotoQL for daily fantasy, SquadQL for season long fantasy and BetQLfor sports betting. These products provide users with streamlined historical research and predictive data to help them compete more effectively in fantasy and betting. Founded in 2015 by Justin Park, Frank Kim and Mike Shiekman, RotoQL seeks to enrich the sports experience through data. For more info visit www.rotoql.com
