Dream Sports, the parent company of online fantasy sports platform Dream11, has raised $225 million from Tiger Global Management, TPG Global, Chrys Capital, and others through primary and secondary investment.
Dream Sports operates a fantasy sports platform Dream11 that is India’s only gaming startup having unicorn status. Last month, the company replaced Chinese phone-maker Vivo as the title sponsor for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
This funding could see Dream11’s valuation spike to around $2.5 Billion. This deal will also drop in Tencent’s shares in the company below 10%. Dream Sports raised $100 Million from Tencent Holdings in a Series D funding round last year.
Dream11 was founded back in 2008 and now claims to have 80 million users on the platform. It also recorded Rs. 775 crores revenue from operations in 2019.
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Dream11’s success attracted more ventures into the fantasy sports segment, Sequoia Capital India and Times Internet-backed Mobile Premier League is now competing against Dream11. Twitter-backed ShareChat also quietly working on a fantasy sports platform.
This segment still faces regulatory hurdles in parts of India. A few states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, and Telangana have banned fantasy sports betting.
If I talk about the whole fantasy sports segment, online fantasy sports platforms in India recorded a 160% jump in revenues from Rs. 920 Cr in FY19 to Rs. 2400 Cr in FY20. Users base has also grown exponentially from 20 lakh in 2016 to 9 crores in 2019.
