Jake Paul and Joey Levy raise $50 million for Betr Startup

Jake Paul, pugilist and popular digital influencer, throws his hat to the world of betting.

Paul, 25, has teamed up with betting industry vet Joey Levy to found Betr, credited as the first sports betting company focused on micro betting with direct-to-consumer sales from investors including Travis Scott, Ezekiel Elliott, Richard Sherman, Dez Bryant and DeSean Jackson.

Paul and Levy are also launching a media venture “for the next generation of sports fans,” buoyed by a Paul-hosted talk show “BS w/ Jake Paul,” where he is joined by his celebrity friends in the sports world, with Betting.

Paul has 70 million followers on social media, including more than 20 million subscribers to his YouTube channel. He was ranked as the second highest-earning YouTuber of 2021 and grossed $45 million behind MrBeast, according to Forbes estimates. Paul’s brother, Logan Paul, is also a professional boxer and digital creator who recently signed a deal to become a WWE SuperStar.

“I wasn’t interested in sports betting until I was introduced to micro betting,” Paul, who is identified as Betr’s president, said in a statement. “Micro bets are the TikTok vification of sports betting and I look forward to bringing it to the masses through Betr.”

The Betr platform allows users to bet on specific events in sporting events, such as pitches and at-bats in baseball games and plays and drives in football games. Levy is co-founder of Simplebet, a business-to-business technology that pioneered micro betting in US esports. Leveraging Simplebet’s technology, Betr will release its app “in the coming weeks”, initially as a free-to-play experience available in all 50 states, with a state rollout of its licensed real money betting experiences to follow later this year. Betr said it has secured market access in several U.S. states through “strategic, equity-based partnerships that the company will announce in the near future.”

Betr executives include product lead Alex Ursa, formerly of FanDuel; Media Chief Mike Denevi coming from Bleacher Report.

The Miami-based operation has raised $50 million in funding from institutional and strategic investors. List includes: Florida Funders, 8vc, Aliya Capital Partners, Fuel Venture Capital, FinSight Ventures, Travis Scott, Ezekiel Elliott, Richard Sherman, Dez Bryant, DeSean Jackson, Braxton Berrios, Palm Tree Crew, Roger Ehrenberg, Mark Wan, Russell Galbut , David Grutman, Deirdre Bigley, Gary Barber, Simplebet, Stronach Group, Magic City Casino, Anti Fund, 305 Ventures, Elizabeth Street Ventures, Riverside Ventures, Gaingels, Moving Capital, Elysium Venture Capital, FJ Labs, Tampa Bay Ventures and Trog Hawley .

Betr completed a $30 million Series A led by Florida Funders earlier this year. The Series A was oversubscribed and the Company has raised an additional $20 million of Series A1 led by Aliya Capital Partners and Fuel Venture Capital with initial closing planned for last quarter and final closing planned for this quarter.

Jake Paul rose to fame with the now-defunct Vine, appearing on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark for two seasons. He has made headlines for his controversial behavior, including being charged with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly in 2020 after he was arrested by police amid a mob of looters at an Arizona mall.