Jock MKT (Jock Market), the sports gaming app that combines daily fantasy sports and retail stock trading, has raised $10m in Series A funding in a round led by New York-based venture capital firm Left Lane Capital.
The initiative also involved continued participation from existing investors, including Will Ventures and Ryan Moore, a current board member of DraftKings and Accomplice founding partner.
Founded in 2017 and launched in 2020 by Co-Founder and CEO Tyler Carlin, Jock MKT has created a new daily fantasy sports gaming format comprising a fantasy sports gaming app where users can make real money buying and selling virtual shares of athletes.
The main differentiator is its cash market format – a unique offering, said the firm, that gives users more flexibility and optionality versus typical daily fantasy contests. Users can join at any time and for any dollar amount.
They can buy and sell shares of athletes in real-time, cash out early by selling to another user in-game or hold to the end and receive fixed Jock MKT payouts tied to final player rankings based on overall fantasy scoring. Each cash market starts with an “Initial Player Offering,” or an IPO, where users have their first opportunity to bid on shares prior to any contest.
Jock MKT’s skill-based gaming format combines the best of daily fantasy sports products with the user interface and mechanics of stock trading and retail investing apps. The result, it claims, is a unique and engaging second screen game that attracts both dedicated sports fans and retail investors alike.
The company officially launched with the NFL, NBA, and the PGA Tour in September of 2020, as many sports returned to their respective playing schedules amidst the pandemic. They added the NHL and MLB in 2021 at the start of each season.
Said Carlin: “We look forward to establishing Jock MKT as the main trading platform for fantasy sports. This funding marks a big milestone for the team, and we’re excited to expand our product offerings to additional platforms. We’ll be looking to add more sports and features to Jock MKT, plus expand into Canada and other states in the near term.”
Matthew Miller from Left Lane Capital, who has joined the Jock MKT Board of Directors, stated: “Jock MKT has a unique and novel product offering relative to its daily fantasy sports peers. We’ve been incredibly impressed by Tyler and his team, and we look forward to taking this journey in building a next-generation sports trading platform to create stronger engagement between sports fans and teams/players.”
With this latest funding in place, Jock MKT said it is well-positioned to capture evolving sports engagement trends as fans seek new ways to follow their favorite teams and players. One of the key indicators of its success, it added, is the length of time spent and engagement in the app.
Users spend more than 1.5 hours in the app per cash market – more than half the duration of an average NBA or NHL game – and the largest cash market to date was the 2021 Master’s Tournament.