It's not often that a single division of a company becomes so successful that it overtakes the entire business.
But that's exactly what has happened at EdjSports. The sports subsidiary of Louisville data firm EdjAnalytics LLC has been growing so fast that co-founder and CEO Sean O'Leary has decided now is the time to shift the company's focus solely to the sports side of the business, forgoing its work in other industries and verticals.
"We're going all in," O'Leary said in an interview Friday. "EdjSports is the business that has the most potential and that's growing the fastest, and we've just made a strategic decision to focus 100% of our time on the sports industry.
"We've done some really insightful, really meaningful work in areas like health care, education, fintech, manufacturing — but everything keeps coming back to sports. With PASPA [Professional and Amateur Sports Provision Act] repeal three years ago and the growth of the sports business for us, we just feel like it's time to go all in."
While EdjAnalytics will remain a corporate entity, O'Leary said the company is turning down other projects that fall outside of the sports realm. The company declined to disclose revenue for EdjSports.
As I previously reported, the Professional and Amateur Sports Provision Act, which had outlawed sports betting nationwide, was repealed in 2018. That ultimately opened up a new consumer market for EdjSports as nearly 30 states have legalized sports betting and even more have introduced legislation to do so.
O'Leary said EdjSports has been placing an emphasis on developing that consumer-facing side of the business, targeting data-driven bettors, fantasy players and fans. EdjSports 2.0 — an updated web platform — was just released about two weeks ago, and the company's native app launched in the app store last week just in time for the upcoming football season.
EdjSports picked up a handful of EdjAnalytics employees as a result of the transition and has grown its staff by 20% in the last year. The company, headquartered at the Gateway to NuLu building at 552 E. Market St. in Louisville, has 34 employees currently and O'Leary anticipates that number will be closer to 50 by the end of 2021.
In addition to growing internally, EdjSports has an aggressive plan to build its portfolio through merger and acquisition activity. The company raised a $5 million Series A round last August and is looking add more capital to fuel that M&A-led growth.
O'Leary said he is looking to acquire companies that have unique content and user bases that complement EdjSports' existing platform.
"We're really excited about the companies that are in this space that want to be a part of what we're building, as well as the experience and talent of the people that are interested in some of the positions that we're hiring," O'Leary said. "The market for businesses in the space is very frothy right now, so there's still a long runway. We're still in the first or second inning of this whole thing."
