This week: ALT Sports Data closes $5M round to scale tech platform

Also: Spina’s platform for “childhood games with adult stakes,” and a splashy partnership between Splash Sports and Polymarket—which includes a $21M mobile survivor contest

June 25, 2026

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ALT Sports Data closes $5M round to scale tech platform

The news: ALT Sports Data has closed a $5M financing round led by Game Changers Ventures, with participation from Relay Ventures and Scrum Ventures. The California-based company builds what it calls a League Operating System—a platform that combines official data, integrity and compliance, fan engagement, media distribution, and sports betting commercial activation into a single framework for sports properties. ASD currently works with more than 30 leagues worldwide, including Formula 1, World Surf League, X Games, and Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.

Zoom in: The round brings a notable returning backer: Game Changers Ventures is led by Roger Ehrenberg, who has backed ASD going back to its earliest days. "The team has built technology, services, and commercial capabilities that help sports organizations participate more effectively in today's marketplace," Ehrenberg said of the renewed bet. CEO Jake Cassaday added the company gives “leagues, regardless of size or stage, the infrastructure to grow their audiences, strengthen fan relationships, and build lasting commercial value around their sport.”

Why it matters: ASD has steadily assembled a data and commercialization stack for leagues that sit outside the major four North American sports—a segment that has historically been underserved by the incumbent data providers. The new capital extends that buildout into AI, international expansion, and integrity solutions—suggesting ASD is positioning itself less as a niche data vendor and more as the connective tissue between emerging sports properties and regulated betting markets. 

For more on how ASD has been building out that stack, see our coverage of their AXS combat sports platform launch and their Formula 1 data supplier deal.

Spina lets you bet on your favorite childhood games—from Connect 4 to Tic-Tac-Toe

The news: Jackson Erminio doesn’t carry your typical real-money gaming founder background—coming up through sneaker reselling and marketing—but that didn’t stop him from launching Spina, a skill-based PVP platform where players wager on classic games like Connect 4, 8-Ball, and Tic-Tac-Toe. The platform is live in 41 states and currently operates on two tracks: a direct-to-consumer app and a B2B channel placing its games on existing iGaming platforms.

Zoom in: Liquidity is Spina's defining challenge—for live PVP to work, someone has to be on the other side of a match within seconds. Erminio's near-term fix is cross-platform player pooling, which lets users across different partner platforms fill the same match queue. Hub88 is currently in testing, which Erminio expects will open access to a far broader operator network. On the funding side, Spina is bootstrapped and Erminio has turned down several early investment offers: "Can they help us? Do they have access to these rooms that I don't currently have access to?"

Why it matters: Skill gaming is drawing less attention than prediction markets right now, but Erminio thinks there’s still fertile ground in the segment. Spina operates in a regulatory gray zone where the line between skill and chance is still being drawn—and that determination will shape the entire competitive landscape, especially as sweepstakes platforms face mounting pressure. With 90% single-session retention and Connect 4 accounting for roughly 70% of all games played, Spina has early product signals to build on while it waits for the regulatory picture to sharpen.

Hear more from Erminio, and his vision for the skill gaming category, on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

The news: Splash Sports and Polymarket have announced a partnership that will bring prediction market trading to Splash's platform of 2M active users starting with the 2026 NFL season. Splash will operate as a CFTC-registered Introducing Broker, embedding Polymarket's event-driven contracts inside its existing survivor, pick'em, daily fantasy, and commissioner-led contests. To mark the launch, Polymarket is sponsoring what the companies are calling the world's largest pro football survivor contest, with $21M in guaranteed prizes.

Zoom in: Survivor contests—where players pick one NFL team per week to win outright, getting eliminated when their pick loses—have historically been a Las Vegas institution. The most prestigious versions (Circa Survivor, Westgate Super Contest) required contestants to either be physically in Vegas or pay a proxy service $200–$300 per season just to submit picks on their behalf. Splash's pitch is democratization. "Now anyone with a phone in 35+ states (plus Canada) can play in the largest survivor contest in history," co-CEO TJ Ross said.

Why it matters: This deal is a test case for whether prediction markets can continue to reach mainstream sports fans through an embedded distribution model rather than a standalone platform. Polymarket gained cultural traction during the 2024 election cycle, but sports is a different and much larger retention challenge—sticky weekly engagement over a 6-month season. If Splash's 2M users actually trade alongside their survivor picks, it could become one of the better adoption plays in the prediction market space. 

News, money, and alpha 🗞️

  • Novig has hired Elie Mishory (former Kalshi general counsel and ex-DOGE staffer) as its chief regulatory and legal affairs officer.

  • Nearly half of all crypto execution volume on Polymarket International are being driven by 5-minute, 15-minute, and hourly Bitcoin markets, according to analysis from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.

  • PrizePicks RG director Phil Sherwood spoke with SBC Americas on embedding player protection into product development and why the company won't market to under-21s regardless of state law.

Great gigs 💼

Big opportunities with awesome growth-stage companies, brought to you by BettingJobs.

  • Funteron is hiring a Senior Software Architect to own the full technical foundation of an affiliate sportsbook platform, from bet placement and bonus engines to regulatory compliance. Remote. (View job)

  • Outlier is hiring a Product Marketing Manager to own positioning, GTM strategy, and product launches for a subscription-based sports betting analytics platform. Remote (USA). (View job)

From the studio 🎙️

Catch up on the latest episodes of The BettingStartups Podcast.

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