Sharp Alpha

Good news from the team at Almost Friday Media

Boys for Life: Alex Wolff, Will Angus and More Almost Friday Media Stars to Lead Paramount Comedy - Variety "Aside from Wolff, the cast consists of the comedic minds behind Almost Friday TV, a sketch crew born out of the digital media company Almost Friday Media. Angus broke out in the Mindy Kaling comedy show 'Not Suitable for Work' and will next be seen in Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman movie 'Artificial' alongside Andrew Garfield. Langdon, Cullagh and Collins are all founding members of Almost Friday TV, for which they write and act in viral comedy sketches." https://lnkd.in/gh8_U-_9

Very excited to announce that ProphetX has raised $35 million to power the prediction market sports traders need. A big thank you to our leads Parlay Capital Holdings LLC and Data Point Capital as well as participating firms Impellent Ventures, FDJ UNITED Ventures, Sharp Alpha, Connexa Capital, Greenwave Ventures LLC, and The Operating Group for believing in us and joining us on our mission. Sports deserve to be treated as a global asset class akin to any other commodity. We have been working on this vision for over 7 years across 3 regulatory landscapes, and last month, we officially opened Prophet nationwide as a CFTC federally regulated sports prediction market. Consumers deserve to be treated fairly and this is the ideal framework to do so. Now that we are a licensed exchange, not only can we promote our app for customers to trade on, but we can work with partners who are looking to launch predictions in their apps. If you are one of those companies interested in working with us, please don't hesitate to DM me or my cofounder Jake Benzaquen (preferably him though!). I wrote about some of my thoughts here: https://lnkd.in/eSuVV2SM Onwards 🚀

Very excited to announce that ProphetX has raised $35 million to power the prediction market sports traders need. A big thank you to our leads Parlay Capital Holdings LLC and Data Point Capital as well as participating firms Impellent Ventures, FDJ UNITED Ventures, Sharp Alpha, Connexa Capital, Greenwave Ventures LLC, and The Operating Group for believing in us and joining us on our mission. Sports deserve to be treated as a global asset class akin to any other commodity. We have been working on this vision for over 7 years across 3 regulatory landscapes, and last month, we officially opened Prophet nationwide as a CFTC federally regulated sports prediction market. Consumers deserve to be treated fairly and this is the ideal framework to do so. Now that we are a licensed exchange, not only can we promote our app for customers to trade on, but we can work with partners who are looking to launch predictions in their apps. If you are one of those companies interested in working with us, please don't hesitate to DM me or my cofounder Jake Benzaquen (preferably him though!). I wrote about some of my thoughts here: https://lnkd.in/eSuVV2SM Onwards 🚀

Today, Axios broke the news: We have raised $35M to scale America's first federally regulated sports-native prediction market and accelerate the growth of our B2B platform. Prediction markets are now a permanent fixture of the American financial landscape, and ProphetX intends to lead them. Read the Axios exclusive by Ryan Lawler here: https://lnkd.in/eieKdE6Q Full press release here: https://lnkd.in/ei8V_mJu Parlay Capital Holdings LLC Data Point Capital FDJ UNITED Ventures Greenwave Ventures LLC Connexa Capital Impellent Ventures The Operating Group Sharp Alpha

We have partnered with Players' Lounge to integrate our prediction markets and enable its community to trade event contracts on real-world sports outcomes. Read more from our Co-Founder Jake Benzaquen and the full press release here: https://prophetx.cc/1pB5rT

Bluestone Equity Partners leads a $55m growth round in cue sports platform Poolhouse. The transaction marks the tenth deal from Bluestone's inaugural $350m fund, with Partner Walker Brumskine joining the board and Principal Jake Harris taking an observer seat. Most of the capital will fund BillyQ, a proprietary vision-processing platform developed over six years with the team behind Hawk-Eye, which overlays a responsive digital layer onto a conventional pool table. Poolhouse was founded by Steve and Dave Jolliffe, creators of Topgolf and Puttshack, alongside CEO Andrew O'Brien. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dBDWnZut #PEInsights #privateequity #growthequity

New York Times: A Tech Infused Pool Hall Start-Up Raises $55 Million (Poolhouse)

Poolhouse just raised $55 million. The pool hall itself isn't the real business. The tech-infused pool concept, built by Steve and Dave Jolliffe, closed a new funding round led by Bluestone Equity Partners, valuing the company above $100 million. The money funds international expansion beyond the company's two-story flagship venue in London, which opened two months ago near Liverpool Street. Here's the more interesting part. The actual platform is called BillyQ, built with the team behind Hawk-Eye, the same computer vision system that tracks ball movement across Major League Baseball, ATP tennis and Premier League soccer. Cameras and projectors turn a normal pool table into a tracked, skill-adjusted game, complete with handicapping so players of different skill levels can compete fairly. CEO Andrew O'Brien says the company is close to a significant US distribution deal, with plans to sell BillyQ directly to cruise ships, movie theaters and other pool hall operators as a subscription hardware product, not just run its own venues. The team is also working to shrink the device and bring the cost down toward that of a home fitness product, with an eventual goal of getting BillyQ into people's living rooms. Bluestone's Bobby Sharma put the thesis plainly. This isn't just a venue format. It's a technology company that happens to have built one very good showroom first. #SportsBusiness #SportsTech #VentureCapital #SportsInvestment #Entertainment #StartupFunding #Hospitality #Innovation