Commission free sports betting exchange Novig raised $6m (PS5.0m/EUR5.9m), in a round of pre-seed financing, from well-known investors.
The investment round in Novig was led by New York’s Lux Capital, and included several Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
Arash Ferdowsi, co-founder of Dropbox and Paul Graham, inventor of Lisp language programming, is also an investor. Joe Montana, the former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback is also an investor.
Novig’s CEO Jacob Fortinsky stated that the company was “honored” to receive the support from tech investors.
He added, “Our vision: To reshape a sports betting industry that for years has favored exploitation and innovation over integrity and transparency. We want to usher in a new era of empowerment and honesty.” Together, we are rewriting rules and giving power to bettors.
Novig plans October launch date
Novig has completed its investment round in advance of its planned October launch, which will be Colorado.
Novig has entered into a partnership for 10 years with Full House Resorts, and their Bronco Billy’s Casino.
The beta-test of the exchange was completed in the autumn of 2022. The pre-launch competition saw 200 traders compete over a period of two weeks, involving 15500 orders on 1,290 markets.
Novig claims that the platform confirms live bets instantly. Exchange also claims that its matching engine is 100x faster than other leaders in the market.
Fortinsky said, “We are thrilled by the response of Novig’s initial users to our product and we look forward to its introduction to Colorado’s regulated market this autumn.”
Players will have the option to bet on NFL, NBA, and MLB both before and during games. Novig will be offering Moneyline, Point Spreads, Game Totals, and Team Futures.
Sports betting exchanges in the United States
Novig, the new sports betting exchange in the US that aims to make peer-to-peer gambling mainstream.
Prophet Exchange, a New York-based company, announced in April that it received $10m of new funding. This was reportedly to help support its technology offering. It was announced that this would follow its August 2022 launch.
PredictIt is a New Zealand-based prediction site that had been previously cleared by the government to accept bets placed on events other than sports. However, it lost this authorization in February 2023.
The world’s biggest exchange Betfair (owned by Flutter) has failed to break into the market.
After four years, in September 2020 it will exit New Jersey, its sole live market, due to a low number of customers.
In order for a peer to peer exchange to succeed, it needs a lot of liquidity. This is a challenge that some exchanges in the US have faced.
