PredictionStrike

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Founders: Brad Chabra & Deven Hurt
Founding: 2018
Mission: Turn fan’s specialized knowledge and love for the game into real money, without gambling
Employees: 13 & 15% Local
Workplace: Remote
Stage & Capital Raised: Series A & $14.7M raised
Investors: Bullpen Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Correlation Ventures, New Age Capital, Elevate Capital, Gaingels, HighSage Ventures and Sixty8 Capital
Key Customers: Passionate Sports Fans
Glassdoor Rating: N/A
Valuation (estimated): $32M (announced in the $10M Q3 ‘23 Series A fundraise)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!

PredictionStrike is a simulated stock market that allows users to invest in “stock”​ of their favorite professional athletes. Founded in 2018 by childhood friends Brad Chabra & Deven Hurt, they had an idea, got to work, and the rest is history right? Well, not exactly.

Deven & Brad are from New York. Which we will not hold against them. They went to elementary, middle, and high school together. Then, each went their separate ways. Deven came up to Boston to go to a small Crimson colored school in Cambridge and, as part of a junior deferral program, did a two year stint after undergrad before attending Harvard Law School right down the street. He was determined to build a career in cyber law. He contracted with the NBA, doing cybersecurity work for stadiums, and then went to work for Nike out in their Portland HQ. Brad built a digital health business out of Harvard’s iLab and also spent time working as an accomplished venture banker in New York.

When Brad & Deven would catch up with their crew around fantasy sports seasons, Brad would complain about losing money in the stock market. You ain’t alone Brad. Why couldn’t he just put money on LeBron and invest in athletes instead? So, in 2018, they wireframed and glued an initial concept together for their fantasy football league. The guys loved it. 

In 2019, they released a public beta. Mind you, Deven and Brad are both working full time. But this felt like it could be a company. Then the pandemic hit. Every sport, including the NBA, went on pause. And yet, as the fanless seasons restarted, PredictionStrike began to take off and saw their highest period of growth to date with people at home and not much else to do. 

They had raised an angel “friends and family” round to help pay the bills and next went out to raise an initial venture financing in the spring of 2021 through New Age Capital and MaC Venture Capital. Game on. Both Brad and Deven transitioned to work on PredictionStrike full time to invest in themselves and make this new company their primary focus. Congrats on graduating from law school too, Deven!

PredictionStrike is a fantasy sports stock market where you can buy and sell shares of pro athletes. Prices move as if they’re stocks, based on an algorithm that closely tracks the projected fantasy performance of individual athletes as well as the transaction flows of buying and selling shares in those athletes. Don’t look at Aaron Rodgers stock right now Jets fans..

PredictionStrike aspires to be the pinnacle of fan engagement where fans can see how their favorite athletes are doing and participate in the upside of their performance. As the barriers continue to fall in terms of the space of connection between athletes and fans, their platform gives a really interesting and compelling way for fans to build relationships with athletes and have “skin in the game”. They’ve built direct partnerships with UFC fighters and plan to expand to all professional sports in the quarters ahead.

5,000 players from the NFL, NBA, MLB, MMA & soccer (MLS & the Top 5 European leagues) are supported on the platform today. The platform acts as a market maker, taking a 2.5% transaction fee on each trade, and also monetizes through a subscription program which gives users lower fees, faster withdrawals, and access to exclusive content. 

Now, the team is excited to announce they just closed their $10M Series A led by Bullpen Capital, FanDuel’s first investor alongside participation from most of their previous investors. PredictionStrike has done $60M in transaction value to date with 200%+ y/y growth in transaction volume, year to date. They’ve also reached 175k+ users across almost 40 states. A key area of focus in the coming quarters will be to build their presence in strategic, big time sports cities. Hey, I know one of those..

Operators to Know:

My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the PredictionStrike team if I missed any up & coming operators internally

Key Roles To Be Hired:

  • More roles coming soon!

If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:

  • What will be the main uses of capital from the brand spanking new Series A fundraise?
  • Which main platform product features will be prioritized in the quarters ahead?
  • What are the biggest challenges as you scale the team into the “growth company” stage?
  • What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add into 2024 // teams that need the most help?

We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about PredictionStrike you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team let more consumers put their money where their mouth is on behalf of their favorite athletes. All fans applaud your efforts. See you around town!

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