Gurugram-based Fantasy Akhada, an online fantasy sports platform, has raised $2 million in a pre–Series A round.
The funding round was led by Prime Securities, Team India Managers Limited, and existing investors which included a group of highly successful professionals, including Jyotivardhan Jaipuria (ex-Bank of America Merrill Lynch), the family of Harsha Bhogle (renowned cricket commentator), Sunil Sood (ex-MD & CEO, Vodafone), and Atul Kasbekar (photographer/producer). Nikunj Doshi (Managing Partner – Bay Capital) also participated in this round in his personal capacity, the company informed.
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Fantasy Akhada has been on an upward growth trajectory over the last six months after its fundraising in the month of April 2021. The user base has swelled up over this period to reach almost six lakh.
During this period, the startup has graced top sports channels like Star Sports and Sony Sports Network, with properties like the English Premier League and the Indian Women Cricket Team’s tour of Australia.
According to a press release, Fantasy Akhada will leverage the funding to focus on enhancing its in–house tech capability, be aggressive with its user acquisition, retention strategies, and for scaling up the organisation. Being a customer centric fantasy platform, their primary vision is to ‘enhance sports engagement among sports fans.”
Incepted in January 2020 by Amit Purohit, Fantasy Akhada offers users a platform to play and win exciting contests in fantasy cricket and football. With Harsha Bhogle as its brand ambassador, the sports tech company continues to scale newer heights.
Not only is the platform set to broaden the arena to other sports like Kabaddi and basketball, but the platform will also utilize the fresh round of funding to enhance the prize pool of guaranteed mega contests.
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Amit Purohit, Founder of Fantasy Akhada, “We are absolutely delighted to welcome our new set of investors. Prime Securities has been a true partner for us over the last six months and we could not have asked for a better investment banker on board in this journey. We will be leveraging this fundraise to drive our vision of enhancing sports engagement in sports fans and the entire team is absolutely kicked about this development, at the most opportune moment, just before the heavy-duty T20 cricket season.”
Nischay Saraf, Senior Vice President, Early-Stage Financing, Prime Securities, shared, “At Prime, we like to identify high growth potential early-stage companies and partner with them. Fantasy Akhada has been one such example, where we had recently raised about $1 million in April 2021. The operational metrics have outperformed even the best-case scenarios of the management team, accelerating the estimates by 18 months. This phenomenal growth has led to the current round in a matter of six months backed by Prime’s network of HNIs and family offices. Given the understanding of the user life cycle and user experience that the team has, we are certain that they will be able to carve out a clear niche for themselves in this rapidly developing ecosystem.”