DraftKings, a fantasy sports site that offers cash prizes to winners of its daily fantasy competitions, has raised $41 million in a funding round led by The Raine Group. The round, which brings DraftKing’s total funding to nearly $75 million since its founding in April 2012, included existing investors Redpoint Ventures, GGV Capital and Atlas Venture. DraftKings also announced the acquisition of StarStreet on Monday, a similar fantasy sports site and the second such acquisition for DraftKings in as many months. The company acquired DraftStreet, another fantasy site, in July. Terms of the StarStreet acquisition were not disclosed.
Fantasy sports startup DraftKings has raised another $41 million in funding led by The Raine Group. The company is also announcing that it’s acquired competitor StarStreet to capture an even larger portion of the daily fantasy sports market. In addition to The Raine Group, existing investors Redpoint Ventures, GGV Capital, and Atlas Venture all joined in on the Series C round of funding. That raise comes less than a year after the company raised $25 million last November. In all, the company has brought in nearly $75 million in outside financing. All that money was raised in part because DraftKings has grown rapidly since being founded just two years ago, riding the wave of interest in fantasy sports competition. The company differentiates itself from most of the major fantasy sports leagues out there, however, by operating a series of daily contests that its users can log in and join. Making its contests daily — or in the case of football, weekly — as opposed to operating season-long leagues means that DraftKings users are less likely to lose interest over the course of the year.
