This week: OddsBlaze raises six-figure seed investment to expand its odds data infrastructure

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OddsBlaze raises six-figure seed investment to expand its odds data infrastructure

The news: Sports betting data startup OddsBlaze has raised a six-figure seed investment from Paris Smith and Life Winning, the company exclusively shared with BettingStartups. The capital will fund product expansion and build out the real-time odds infrastructure OddsBlaze sells to sportsbooks, betting apps, and prediction markets via a developer-focused API.

Zoom in: Founder Matthew Paulton, who previously built Cheap Data Feeds into the original data infrastructure behind OddsJam before Gambling.com Group acquired it for up to $160M last year, runs OddsBlaze largely solo with a handful of contract developers—and has already crossed six-figure monthly recurring revenue less than a year after launch. "I think a lot of our early success has come from focusing on what developers and betting companies actually need: fast, reliable data, broad coverage, affordable pricing, and an API that's easy to work with," Paulton tells us.

Why it matters: OddsBlaze was one of five finalists at SBC Summit Americas' First Pitch competition in June, a field that skewed toward data and operator tooling over consumer apps—one signal of where B2B gaming investment is heading. Paulton points to prediction market makers and enterprise demand for alternatives to the industry's dominant data supplier as the next growth vectors, positioning OddsBlaze against a build-versus-buy decision where latency and coverage are what buyers evaluate first.

River Markets snares $8.5M seed to build prediction market infrastructure

The news: River Markets, a startup building unified execution and risk infrastructure for prediction-market trading firms, announced an $8.5M seed round led by Haun Ventures. The round also included Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, UFO Holdings, Qube Research & Technologies, and a group of angel investors from Citadel, Google, HRT, and JP Morgan, among others. Founders Oscar Levy and Antonin Parrot started the company four months ago.

Zoom in: The founders, who traded prediction markets themselves before building River Markets, say the goal is unified access: "River Markets gives trading firms unified execution and risk across every prediction-market venue through a single platform." The product launched with trading teams on May 1st and is claimed to already be used by several of the top 10 traders by volume on Kalshi and Polymarket, as well as by “some of the world's leading prediction market hedge funds and proprietary trading firms.”

Why it matters: As prediction markets have grown, the infrastructure connecting to them has become a fiercely contested battleground for expansion. River Markets’ thinking is that closing that gap is what turns event contracts into a durable asset class rather than a niche trading venue.

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How The Sharps built a poker-style tournament app in 12 weeks with AI, and what’s next

The news: The Sharps, a skill-based peer-to-peer sports prediction tournament platform, lets players buy in from $10 to $10,000 and use props, parlays, and same-game parlays to climb a live leaderboard—poker mechanics applied to sports, with no sportsbook on the other side of the bet. Founder Robert McCall built the self-funded platform himself in about 12 weeks with no programming background, leaning on AI tools, and discussed it on The BettingStartups Podcast.

Zoom in: The platform's most distinctive feature is the Sharps Score, a rating built from roughly 20 metrics like closing line value and ROI that grades and exposes every player's picks—something McCall wants to become sports handicapping's version of a golf handicap or chess ELO. The pushback has come from the sharps themselves, some of whom don't want their edges made visible, but McCall is leaning in: "athletes train with better athletes to get better," he said.

Why it matters: McCall was one of five startup finalists at SBC Summit Americas in June, roughly 60 days into the build, and the platform now operates across 173 countries via a geolocation matrix that adjusts between full tournaments and free play by jurisdiction. Ahead of NFL season, McCall is prioritizing functionality and security over user-count growth, framing the AI-assisted, largely solo build as a preview of how startups will increasingly get made.

Catch the entire conversation with McCall on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

• ProphetX partnered with Pikkit to bring CFTC-regulated sports prediction markets to Pikkit's trading community ahead of the NFL season.

• Data supplier Oddin has launched Oddin Casino, a new division building AI-driven live dealer casino technology, marking its first major expansion beyond esports.

• Tabcorp agreed to acquire BetMakers Technology Group for A$283M to accelerate its digital transformation and B2B wagering business.

• 🆕 A rapidly expanding crypto casino start-up is hiring a Head of Growth to build scalable acquisition engines and own multi-channel growth strategy from initial traction to scale. Remote. (View job)

• 🆕 Funteron is hiring a Marketing & Growth Intern to help scale ITV OddsFinder, its betting comparison platform integrated across ITV Racing. London/Dublin/Belfast (flexible/hybrid). (View job)

• DubClub is hiring a Lifecycle Marketing & CRM Lead to build its lifecycle marketing function from scratch, owning creator and subscriber retention. (View job)

• Pikkit is hiring a Player Development & Partnerships Manager to build relationships with its most engaged users and top operators' player development teams. Hybrid, New York City. (View job)

• Bringing poker tournament mechanics to sports predictions w/ Robert McCall from The Sharps

• Solving the pain of manual marketing compliance w/ Neil Dillon from Solas Compliance

• How the world's #1 sports betting operator accelerates startup partnerships w/ Ed & Robert

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