Dream 11 parent Dream Sports raises $840 mn at valuation of $8 bn

Sports technology company Dream Sports, the parent firm of fantasy sports platform Dream11, said Wednesday it has completed an investment of $840 million at an $8 billion valuation, led by Falcon Edge, DST Global, D1 Capital, Redbird Capital and Tiger Global. The round also saw participation from existing investors like TPG and Footpath Ventures, making it among the largest investments globally in the sports technology and gaming sector in India.

“Our vision and mission is to create an entrepreneur-led virtuous cycle of investment, innovation and wealth creation for all stakeholders in the sports ecosystem, from fans to athletes, teams and leagues. Our investors have deep experience in developing sports ecosystems globally, and we are fortunate to have their guidance to ‘Make Sports Better’ for 1 billion Indian sports fans,” said Harsh Jain, CEO and co-founder, Dream Sports, in a statement.

In the gaming sector in India, investments have crossed around $1.6 billion in the first nine months of 2021 and exceeded what was invested in the last five years, a report by boutique investment bank Maple Capital Advisors and All India Gaming Federation said on Wednesday, The adoption of gming is led by smartphone penetration, the pandemic, growing Internet availability, digital payments and so on, it added.

Fantasy sports has witnessed a steep growth in the last 24 months, with more than 100 million gamers playing fantasy sports across platforms, helped by Indian Premier League and other sporting events in India and globally.

Dream Sports, with an existing user base of 140 million Indian sports fans, is focused on building one of the world’s largest sports ecosystems which includes sports content, commerce, experiences, fan engagement (including sports gaming and esports), Web 3.0 solutions, fantasy sports and fitness tech.

Earlier this year, Dream Sports further strengthened its commitment to this space by announcing a corpus of $250 million through its corporate venture capital and mergers and acquisitions arm, Dream Capital. Dream Capital has built an initial portfolio of 10 companies, largely focusing on thematic early stage investments in India, including, Fittr, SoStronk, KheloMore and Elevar. Dream Capital is now expanding its sports, fan engagement and fitness portfolio in India and globally.

“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, Managing Partner at DST Global. “We’re very impressed with their customer centric approach, product strategy and ability to strengthen connections between fans and their favorite sports.”

A homegrown company founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream Sports is located in Mumbai and employs close to 1,000 ‘Sportans’.

Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Dream Sports on the transaction.

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