Winible, which offers sports betting influencers a way to monetize their picks through digital storefronts, has raised $6 million seed funding from nearly two dozen investors, the company will announce Tuesday.
Winible allows social media-driven influencers to easily create storefronts to offer subscriptions for picks and insights. The company says it fills a need for high-profile handicappers to distribute content in a professional manner while also being able to handle payments outside of peer-to-peer applications like Venmo and CashApp. The company had a soft launch last year and now counts 75,000 active subscribers who have placed $30 million in bets with some 100 sports betting influencers.
The announced seed funding round is led by Inspired Capital, a venture capital fund with some $900 million in assets founded by Alexa von Tobel, the founder of financial education site LearnVest. Billionaire Penny Pritzker is co-founder of Insight, according to the fund’s website. Insight focuses on tech-based companies of all types. Among the four dozen investments listed on its website are robotic lawnmower maker Scythe and co-parenting therapy provider Good Inside.
The Inspired VC group leads about two dozen disclosed investors in the round, including NFL Hall of Famer Ray Lewis, Premier Lacrosse League co-founder Mike Rabil, World Jai-Alai League chairperson Scott Savin, Syracuse Crunch hockey club owner Howard Dolgon and TV college football analyst Adam Breneman. Kyle Christensen, chief marketing officer of Splash Sports, Only Fans executive Jamie Sharp and Status Labs and former FanDuel executive Jesse Boskoff are among other participants. Sports handicappers including Cody Dunlap, Spence McManus and Nathan Antenucci are investors in the round as well as users of Winible, according to the company.
Winible says it provides handicappers a way to distribute premium content outside of commonly used platforms like Discord and Telegram while offering subscription management tools, text alert capabilities, self-service support, free trial management and custom discount codes capabilities. The business says it operates in a revenue sharing with handicappers. Revenue and valuation aren’t disclosed by the company.
(This story has corrected the name of Inspired Capital in the headline and third and fourth paragraphs. A previous version referred to the firm as Insight Capital.)
