Sports betting app Wagr announced its public launch after completing a $12 million Series A funding round that will allow the company to further develop its product and, more importantly, expand to other states. During its private beta release, the app was available in Tennessee.
As reported by Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy, two of the investors in the Series A funding round include The Kraft Group, established by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils.
Created by Harvard Business School students Mario Malave and Eliana Eskinazi in 2019, Wagr is intended to stand out from other sports betting apps and appeal to more casual users by incorporating a social component.
The app matches a bettor with someone else in the same state who’s willing to wager the opposite side. Leaderboards and community posts will also be a part of the user experience.
Wagr charges a 5 percent transaction fee on each bet, which is how it generates revenue.
Other investors involved in the Series A funding round for Wagr are venture capital companies BITKRAFT Ventures, Greycroft, Pear VC, and Seven Seven Six. (Seven Seven Six, run by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, first invested $4 million in the betting app in June 2021.)
According to McCarthy, Wagr hopes to obtain betting licenses in five more states by the end of 2022 and aims to launch an app for Android users in the next couple of months.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
