This week: Megapot scores $5M pre-seed funding for global lottery

Also: NEXT.io and BettingStartups talk startup funding, and Intelitics co-founder explains why sports betting marketers are flying blind on the podcast.

April 02, 2026

The news: Megapot, a crypto-powered global lottery platform, has raised a $5M pre-seed round led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Bankless Ventures, and the founders of FanDuel, Betfair, and MyPrize. The company is building a single shared jackpot lottery accessible worldwide, with its first lottery already drawing players from 124 countries and generating jackpots over $1M.

Zoom in: Most lotteries are constrained by geography, which caps jackpot size and limits appeal. Megapot’s approach banks on lotteries that eventually converge into one global daily draw—and early traction backs it up, with 19 jackpot winners since 2024, including one first-time player who won over $200,000. The company says its product was inspired by “viral daily games like Wordle and HQ Trivia,” where people paused to check their phones as part of their “daily ritual.”

Why it matters: The round signals serious institutional conviction in crypto-native gaming infrastructure, with Dragonfly leading and gaming heavyweights from FanDuel and Betfair backing the vision. If Megapot can make a daily global lottery as habitual as Wordle, there will be a lot for this upstart to celebrate.

NEXT.io, BettingStartups talk startups and funding: “At the early stage, you're really betting on the jockey, not the horse”

The news: Fresh off launching BettingStartups Capital, founder Jesse Learmonth joined the NEXT.io Podcast to pull back the curtain on how the firm makes investment decisions at the earliest stages. The firm writes $100,000 to $250,000 checks into pre-seed and seed-stage companies across the real-money gaming ecosystem, and has already backed AI supplier InsightPlay.ai as its first investment.

Zoom in: With no meaningful KPIs or unit economics to assess at the pre-seed stage, Learmonth says the evaluation framework comes down almost entirely to people. "There's this fine balance that founders have to strike between having conviction in their idea, but also having the humility to listen to the market… and adapt along the way," he said. Co-lead Paris Smith distills it further into four traits the firm looks for: hungry, humble, smart, and passionate.

Why it matters: BettingStartups Capital is positioning itself as more than a check—combining capital with media distribution and years of pattern recognition built through hundreds of founder conversations on the podcast. 

Sponsored by SBC

The news: First Pitch returns at SBC Summit Americas June 11, giving early-stage betting and gaming startups a chance to pitch live on stage for a prize package valued at over $100,000. Five companies will be selected to present in front of top investors and industry leaders. Applications are now open until April 17.

Why it matters: First Pitch has become a direct pathway for startups to get in front of capital and decision-makers in the space. Hosted by BettingStartups and a panel of experienced operators and investors, it’s a rare opportunity to validate your product, refine your story, and sometimes get the difficult feedback you need—all at once.

Intelitics co-founder on why sports betting marketers are flying blind—and how to fix it

The news: Intelitics co-founder Allan Stone joined the BettingStartups Podcast this week to talk about the marketing intelligence gap in betting and gaming—and how his platform is solving it. Intelitics is an AI-native platform that connects ad spend, affiliate tracking, and operator data warehouses to help companies link every marketing dollar to predicted revenue and profit, not just vanity metrics like first-time deposits.

Zoom in: Stone argues the market has finally caught up to a problem he identified back in 2012-13: operators can no longer rely on cheap capital and new state launches to mask marketing inefficiencies. "Every dollar you spend as a brand, as a consumer product, whether you say that it's brand, whether you say it's a partnership, whether you say it's pure performance, every dollar should be viewed through a performance lens," he said.

Why it matters: With the upcoming NFL season shaping up to be a potential all-time high-water mark for industry marketing spend, driven by both legacy sportsbooks and newly flush prediction market platforms, the pressure to spend smarter has never been higher. Stone's view is that the old playbooks are obsolete, and the operators who build a true performance feedback loop into their marketing stack will have a decisive edge.

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News, money, and alpha 🗞️

  • Rithmm CEO shared the launch of LineScout, a product to “compare sports prediction market probabilities” across Kalshi, Polymarket and other sportsbooks.

  • Tom Waterhouse explores the concept of “moats,” and why Evolution stays ahead in a guest post this week.

  • Zero Labs is hosting its Sports Innovation Launchpad, a special edition of its 3-day accelerator focused on spor--ts media, fan engagement, and venue experience, in Las Vegas July 6–8. Applications are open now.

Great gigs 💼

Big opportunities with awesome growth-stage companies

From the studio 🎙️

Catch up on the latest episodes of The BettingStartups Podcast.

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