In December, the founders of StarStreet—a Boston-area fantasy sports startup acquired by DraftKings last year—launched a new daily fantasy sports app, Draft.
On Wednesday, Draft, which is based in New York, has announced raising $3.5 million in funding—amid the excitement of March Madness. The timing is intentional: Draft says players can use the app to compete in head-to-head fantasy drafts throughout the NCAA tournament and engage with the games beyond their brackets.
Draft founders Jeremy Levine and Nicolo Giorgi, who sold StarStreet to DraftKings in August, a fast-growing fantasy sports startup, which could very well become a billion dollar company.
Levine and Giorgi have marketed Draft for a purely mobile interface. “The fact that no one had built a fantasy game for mobile was just crazy to us,” Levine commented when first announcing the app on iOS. Now, it appears that the insight to create Draft has paid off. Users can play their daily games for cash or for free. Along with the currently offered fantasy games (NBA, NHL, College Basketball), Draft will be launching MLB and Golf soon.
The Series A round was led by Upfront Ventures and included Advancit Capital, BoxGroup (David Tisch), The Chernin Group and QueensBridge Venture Partners (Nas). “We are super excited about the potential for Draft as they continue to innovate in the incredibly dynamic fantasy sports space,” Greg Bettinelli, a partner at Upfront Ventures, noted. “The emergence of daily fantasy sports and mobile has had an immediate impact on the way sports fans interact with their favorite players and teams and Draft takes these behaviors to the next level.”
Screengrabs courtesy of Draft.
