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Read the 11-page pitch deck a sports-betting startup that has raised $100 million used to get the NFL Players Association to invest
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- Mojo is an app that lets users bet on an NFL player’s performance like it’s a stock.
- The startup, whose cofounders include Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore, has raised $100 million.
- See the pitch deck that helped get the NFL Players Association to invest.
Vinit Bharara and Marc Lore have each started several companies, including Diapers.com, which they cofounded and sold to Amazon for $550 million. Lore also founded Jet.com, which Walmart bought in 2016 for $3 billion.
Their latest venture, a new kind of sports-betting app called Mojo, harkens back to one of their first businesses together, The Pit, which was a site for trading sports cards that Topps bought in 2001. Their goal at the time was to create an “E-Trade meets ESPN” that would use trading cards as a proxy to value players, Bharara told Insider, but the strategy was too risky then.
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But with legal sports-betting rippling across the US, and digital collectibles on the rise, the pair teamed up with MLB legend Alex Rodriguez and entrepreneur Bart Stein to rekindle the concept in the form of Mojo.
“I think this idea we had, the first one, was the biggest one,” Bharara recalled Lore telling him.
Mojo is a kind of player stock market where users can trade on an athlete’s performance as if it were shares in a company.
The startup closed in March a $75 million Series A led by Thrive Capital. It also announced in September an additional $25 million in equity and venture debt, with big-name investors including the NFL Players Association.
The app launched in September in New Jersey, and is regulated like other sportsbooks even though its users aren’t wagering directly on the action in a game. Instead, they’re banking on the trajectory of a player’s career, the value of which fluctuates based on on-field stats like yards, touchdowns, and sacks.
For example, shares of Tom Brady are trading at $172 today, up from a value of around $3 in 2000 (if the platform had been around when Brady was the 199th sixth-round pick of the NFL Draft). Meanwhile, New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson is down 6.7% over the last month after missing the first few weeks of the NFL season due to an injury.
The NFLPA relationship is important for Mojo because the app also uses NFL player names, images, and likenesses.
Mojo isn’t the first startup to bring elements of the stock market to gambling, as the US market grows. Companies including Sporttrade, BettorEdge, Prophet, and STX each have different models for sports betting and trading exchange.
But Mojo’s focus on athletes is unique, and could lend itself to player-driven markets like the US, where superstar athletes can draw as much loyalty as a given team.
Mojo launched with a focus on NFL players, and has since expanded to include college-football quarterbacks.
The company shared with Insider a version of the pitch deck that helped it secure funding from the NFLPA. Execs also walked investors through the app in meetings.
“Mojo’s sports stock market is really the first of its kind, and we’re incredibly excited to join as an investor,” Steve Scebelo, president of NFL Players, Inc., said in a statement. “We see a huge opportunity for Mojo to transform sports fandom by bringing fans closer to the players they know and love.”
Here is the 11-slide pitch deck (which excludes financial information that was redacted by the company):
Mojo introduces itself as ‘The Sports Stock Market.’
Mojo
Its name and logo appears surrounded by phones that showcase the app’s interface.
Mojo
The interface examples include a user’s portfolio and stock charts for athletes like Josh Allen that resemble the regular stock market.
The company introduces its founders, including MLB legend Alex Rodriguez.
Mojo
Rodriguez’s cofounders are:
- Lore, who co-owns the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx with Rodriguez.
- Bharara, who is also Mojo’s CEO. He and Lore founded The Pit in 1999 and sold it to trading card company Topps.
- Bart Stein, who is also Mojo’s COO. He founded Stamped, which was sold to Yahoo in 2012, and Wim, which was sold to Walmart in 2018.
Mojo also highlights its 95 full-time employees who it says have experience working at tech companies like Apple and Google, major sports leagues like the MLB and NBA, and sports-betting giants FanDuel and DraftKings.
The company includes that it has raised $100 million from investors like Thrive Capital and Tiger Global, including the $75 million a Series A round that Mojo announced in March.
“You put together the idea of a stock market for sports with the types of founders that are backing, that are part of this company, and you’re like, all right, if somebody’s going to figure this thing out, it’s going to be these guys,” another Mojo investor, Courtside VC partner Vasu Kulkarni, told Insider.
Mojo claims it will ‘change sports forever.’
Mojo
The slide is decorated with examples of how Mojo could transform media through branded segments in sports-talk shows, social-media posts, and podcasts discussing the athlete-stock market.
Mojo says that sports fans are interested in players instead of teams.
Mojo
The slide reads: “Interest in teams has never been higher,” but “teams” is crossed out and is replaced by “players.”
It highlights athletes like Kevin Durant and Russell Wilson who have millions more followers on Twitter than their team’s accounts do.
“Players, not teams, attract Gen Z,” the slide says.
It also says that player prop bets are growing 20% month-on-month and claims that the industry of daily fantasy, NFTs, and trading cards — which is more focused on the players than their teams — is worth $15 billion.
Mojo includes data that shows the growth trajectory of the sports-betting industry.
Mojo
“Fans are pouring their money into sports betting,” the slide says.
It says that sports betting is the No.1 growing US consumer market, according to Goldman Sachs.
The firm also expects the market to grow 40% CAGR over the next decade and an estimated $500 billion in bets to be placed in the US by 2030, according to the slide.
The company explains what sets it apart from other sports-betting apps.
Mojo
“Mojo is for your ‘I knew it’ moments,” the slide says.
The company says that Mojo is the “1st and only way” to invest in the career of pro and amateur athletes.
Its app launched in September on Apple’s App Store, and will soon be available on the Google Play Store, according to Mojo’s website.
Mojo explains how its platform works, using real-time stats to project the careers of athletes.
Mojo
The slide says that customers can buy shares for each player, and are entitled to a payout based on the career-ending stats of the player. The share prices for each player fluctuate based on their real on-field stats, which can change the projection of their career-ending stats.
Customers don’t need to wait for an athlete to retire for a payout, though. They can buy or sell shares on the app any time.
Mojo then explains its payout structure.
Mojo
The payout structure is based on a weighted structure of the athlete’s performance.
Mojo says share prices can change not only based on an athlete’s performance in their sport but also based on news, like an injury or trade, that may affect the market expectations for the athlete’s career.
The slide shows an example of the payout structure for an offensive football player. It shows that 10 yards and 1st downs are worth $0.01, touchdowns and 40+ yard players are worth $0.02, while turnovers and sacks subtract $0.04 and $0.01, respectively.
There is also a “Super Bowl Bonus” for players who win the championship.
Mojo is licensed to operate in New Jersey and says it has market access in 10 more states.
Mojo
Mojo explains how the app is regulated and was able to launch in New Jersey.
The slide says:
- We believed this new product would be bigger, better and safer with regulatory oversight.
- No initial oversight possible as CFTC does not regulate sports and state sports gaming commissions only regular conventional bets.
- Petitioned NJ Division of Gaming to treat Mojo stock as a new, long-term sports futures contract and to regulate under gaming laws.
- Approval secured in August of 2022; Customer protections include age restrictions, risk disclosure requirements, deposit reserves, and others.
Mojo’s final slide suggests it could expand into more sports.
Mojo
The slide shows silhouettes of athletes from hockey, golf, football, baseball, soccer, and tennis.