StartX indulges in Boom Fantasy

Boom Fantasy, a US-based fantasy sports company, has raised $1.4m in seed funding from investors including the Stanford StartX Fund, which invests in startups that have a connection to the university.

Rubicon Venture Capital and angel investor Mark Pincus, the chief executive of online gaming company Zynga, also contributed funds. They were joined by a range of unnamed individuals, including five business professors from Stanford University, two professional athletes and several mobile gaming executives.

Boom Fantasy combines fantasy gaming leagues with gambling. Fantasy leagues usually involve a user assembling a virtual team from real-world players and have their fantasy team tracked based on the player’s real-world performance.

In Boom Fantasy’s model, however, the fantasy team selection is replaced by questions such as “will a specific player score more than eight points in this quarter?” Each round of betting takes approximately 10 minutes and happens alongside the real game.

Boom Fantasy offers a real-money platform in 12 US states, while the remaining states can access a free version.

Assaf Einat, co-founder and chief technology officer of Boom Fantasy, said: “We have built a sophisticated and interactive real-time platform that is completely unique in the market.

“Based on the overwhelming growth of in-game play in Europe, we believe that in-game fantasy sports is the future of the industry. We look forward to introducing this innovative format to sports fans in 2016.”

Stephen Murphy, co-founder and chief executive of Boom Fantasy, said: “At Boom, we cater to real fans who actually want to watch the games – not necessarily the number-crunchers who use complicated algorithms to outperform other line-ups.”