Mobile peer to peer sports betting marketplace, ZenSports, has closed on a $675,000 seed round. ZenSports is a platform that seeks to enable sports betting from anywhere in the world without a centralized bookmaker. According to the company, the funding was part of a broader, rolling close of a $1M+ round that began in February 2019.
Jor Law, co-founder of VerifyInvestor which was acquired by tZero, led the funding round. Law is well known in the Fintech and blockchain sector and is also a high profile attorney.
The funding was said to be syndicated across Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH accelerator. Additionally, Baldini’s Sports Book & Casino and Movoto Co-Founder, Henry Shao also participated in the funding round.
According to Law:
“By leveraging peer-to-peer social concepts and blockchain technology, ZenSports improves the sports betting experience so that customers have more fun and in a more trustworthy environment than what traditional bookmakers offer, all at a fraction of the cost. It’s a perfect use case of blockchain technology, and I’m excited to be part of the journey with Mark and ZenSports.”
ZenSports announced a utility token this past July in post by co-founder and CEO Mark Thomas. The Token called “SPORTS” is used for placing bets, earning discounted betting fees, and getting cash back, bonuses, and other rewards. ZenSports founder explained in the blog post that the utility token is only used as a mechanism for betting and earning rewards through the ZenSports app and network. It is in no way a security.
ZenSports has issued a Security Token back in 2018. That token was named “SPORT.”
ZenSports explains that on their platform individuals may create bets or accept them from others on the marketplace at a fraction of the cost of a traditional bookmaker.
To quote the platform:
“As a decentralized marketplace for sports betting, ZenSports is eliminating the need for a bookmaker altogether, and giving bettors a cheaper, faster, and more trustworthy process for wagering on sports.”
Thomas told Crowdfund Insider:
“One of the things that we’re most excited about with ZenSports is that we’re proving out the first real-world use case for blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. Our customers are using our SPORTS utility token in their everyday lives to bet on sports. Not a lot of other products or companies can say that. We’re looking forward to being a vanguard of this movement for years to come.”
ZenSports’ goal is to eventually integrate SPORTS (the utility token) into other access points within the sports ecosystem. The app is available now in both Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
ZenSports claims that it has processed over $1.5 million in bets and has cleared several regulatory hurdles in order to begin scaling both internationally and in the United States. Since launching its SPORTS cryptocurrency utility token in July 2019, nearly all bets within the app have been made using SPORTS tokens, according to the company
“Our initial customer base, betting volume, and revenue has grown purely from word of mouth and social channels,” said Thomas. “We’re confident that our early product-market fit demonstrates the demand within the sports betting industry for a peer-to-peer marketplace solution that utilizes blockchain and cryptocurrencies. This funding round brought us some great strategic investors and allows us to invest into some great new marketing channels so that we can further accelerate our growth.”