Dream11's parent company launches $250M venture fund to back sports, gaming, fitness startups
Dream11's parent company Dream Sports has launched a corporate venture fund to provide patient capital to sports, gaming, and fitness startups in India.
Dream Sports, the parent company of India's only gaming unicorn Dream11, has set up a $250 million corporate venture capital (CVC) fund to invest in sports, online gaming, and fitness-tech startups.
The stage-agnostic fund will run under its VC and M&A arm Dream Capital (DreamCap), and will back startups that have the potential to cross $100 million in revenues in a period of five years.
DreamCap will offer patient capital ranging from $1 million to $100 million to startups that have disruptive technology, great products, data insights, and a growth model. The entire corpus is financed by Dream Sports' own balance sheet.
Harsh Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Dream Sports, said in a statement,
“Dream Sports has a collective user base of 125 million sports fans, and we recognise the great growth opportunities in sports, gaming, and fitness-tech in India. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we are here to back other entrepreneurs through Dream Capital and provide them with access to our 125 million-strong user base and operational support from our expert team of CXOs.”
Dream11 is India's only gaming unicorn till date
DreamCap has already assessed over 250 startups and backed eight of them, including SoStronk, DreamGameStudios, Elevar, FanCode, and DreamSetGo.
Dev Bajaj, Managing Director, Dream Capital, added,
“As a multi-stage CVC, we provide patient capital plus deep tactical insights to startups to increase their probability of success. Our aim is to complement entrepreneurs with our strategy, product, and marketing knowledge that is not typically accessible at an early stage. DreamCap is always looking to add talent to its team of entrepreneurs and VC/PE professionals with a passion for sports and gaming.”
The launch of the new fund is a step towards Dream Sports' ambitions of becoming a full-stack sports and gaming conglomerate in India.
At present, it runs Dream11 (India's top fantasy sports app), Fancode (a sports content and commerce platform), DreamSetGo (a sports experiences platform), DreamPay (a payment solutions provider), and Dream Capital (the corporate venture arm).
It also runs the Dream Sports Foundation to support sportspeople.
Edited by Suman Singh