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Florida Funders injects more funding into Jake Paul’s startup

Tampa-based venture capital firm and investor network Florida Funders has made an additional investment into Betr, a micro-betting sports platform.
Florida Funders and previous investors participated in a second $35 million financing round for Betr. The startup was founded by boxer and social media influencer Jake Paul and tech entrepreneur Joey Levy.
Paul and Levy, who founded business-to-business sporting betting tech company Simplebet, have billed the Betr Gaming product as the world’s first micro-better-focused app, allowing users to bet on real-time events such as baseball pitches and plays in football during a game, rather than the sole outcome.
The new financing in the Series A2 round, which concluded at the end of June, has boosted the company’s valuation to over $300 million.
Entrepreneur Roger Ehrenberg, through the New York City-based IA Sports Ventures and Eberg Capital entities, co-led the new investment with returning Miami-based investment group Fuel Venture Capital, which initially had a $10 million investment in Betr. Paul and Levy also participated.
“I am thrilled this round has served as a platform to deepen the company’s relationship with Roger Ehrenberg, one of the most successful venture investors of the past two decades who is investing over 10 times his pro rata in this round, and Fuel Venture Capital, one of the preeminent Miami-based venture capital firms, who is doubling their investment in the company …,” Levy said in a prepared statement, thanking the additional investors.
Other major existing investors, including FinSight Ventures and Aliya Capital Partners, participated in the round.
“Although we weren’t the lead investors in this round, we participated in a significant way,” said Saxon Baum, a partner in Florida Funders. He didn’t disclose the funding amount or equity terms.
Florida Funders led the initial $30 million Series A round last year with a $5 million investment — the largest check from Florida Funders to date.
Betr is scheduled to close out the final Series A2 funding round this third quarter.
“By leveraging social media influencers, we’ve [Betr] been able to drive down the customer acquisitions cost,” Baum said about Betr’s overall growth strategy. “Betr is going after a different subset – the casual sports fan. It’s a bigger market and one of the reasons why we initially invested in them.”
Florida Funders typically invests in local business-to-business companies that are raising a pre-seed or a Series A financing round.
“We like to be the first ‘institutional check’ in an active deal,” Baum said.
Betr’s additional slew of past investors includes co-owners of the San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics and Miami Marlins, along with rapper Travis Scott and pro football players Ezekiel Elliott, Dez Bryant, and Richard Sherman.
Betr is licensed and operational in Ohio and Massachusetts. It is licensed in Virginia, where it plans to launch soon, and holds market access in Indiana and other states, according to the company.
In May, Betr announced it was acquiring the Chameleon betting platform from FansUnite for $7.45 million.
The founders said they will be unveiling two additional real-money gaming verticals, which will be announced over the coming weeks and months.
