RedBird joins $840m round for India's Dream Sports
RedBird Capital Partners, a US investment firm that has extensive sport exposure and several months ago picked up a stake in an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, has co-led a $840 million round for local fantasy sports platform Dream Sports.
Other lead investors in the round, which values Dream Sports at $8 billion, include Falcon Edge Capital, DST Global, D1 Capital, and Tiger Global Management. Existing backers such as TPG Capital and Footpath Ventures re-upped. The new round – said to be among the largest in the sports technology space globally – comes eight months after the company raised $400 million at a valuation of $5 billion.
The rise of Dream Sports and local rival Mobile Premier League (MPL) has drawn comparisons to DraftKings and Skillz in the US. Much as the US platforms benefited from the repeal of anti-sports betting legislation, their Indian counterparts have been legitimized by the country’s Supreme Court upholding fantasy sports as games of skill – although a degree of regulatory uncertainty remains.
India’s mobile gaming apps focus on player-to-player competitions, whereby users create their own virtual teams based on real-life players participating in actual matches. Point scoring is based on on-field performance, and cash prizes are earned.
Founded in 2008, Dream Sports is best known for Dream11, which claims more than 140 million users and offers online fantasy sports leagues across cricket, football, kabaddi, basketball, hockey, volleyball, baseball, and handball. It has partnerships with numerous professional sports leagues, but cricket remains the core offering.
The company operates under a freemium model, with users able to participate in free-to-play contests or pay a platform fee, which removes advertising and entitles successful entrants to a share of a winnings pool. Not all free-to-play contests have prizes.
Dream Sports has sought to diversify its business, launching FanCode, a content and commerce platform, DreamPay, a payment solutions provider, and DreamSetGo, a sports experiential platform. Earlier this year, it established a corporate VC unit called Dream Capital with a $250 million pot to invest in sports, gaming, and fitness-tech start-ups.
"We're excited to partner with the Dream Sports family in their vision of building the leading end-to-end sports tech company in India," said Rahul Mehta, a managing partner at DST, in a statement. "We're very impressed with their customer-centric approach, product strategy and ability to strengthen connections between fans and their favorite sports."
Avendus Capital served as exclusive advisor to Dream Sports on the latest transaction. MPL’s most recent funding round came in September when it raised a reported $150 million at a valuation of $2.3 billion.
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