This week: ProphetX raises $35M, expands with B2B prediction market push

Also: Why ESX wants to build a prediction market that sits between PrizePicks and Novig, and why Flutter’s Affiliate Draft looks more like a scouting combine than a pitch contest.

July 30, 2026

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ProphetX raises $35M, expands with B2B prediction market push

The news: ProphetX raised $35M to fund product development, deepen liquidity, and scale the B2B side of its federally regulated sports prediction market. Parlay Capital and Data Point Capital led the round, with FDJ Ventures, Sharp Alpha Advisors, Connexa Capital, Greenwave Ventures, Impellent Ventures, and the Operating Group participating. Chicago Trading Company Ventures, Belvedere Trading, Ematiq, and principals at White Swan Data and Consolidated Trading invested directly.

Zoom in: The round follows ProphetX's CFTC approval in June as both a designated contract market and derivatives clearing organization, and a distribution deal last week with Players' Lounge that put NFL, NBA, and international soccer contracts in front of a cash-prize gaming community that has handled more than $250M in skill-based wagers since 2016. "Prediction markets are now a permanent fixture of the American financial landscape, and ProphetX intends to lead them," CEO and co-founder Dean Sisun said in a press statement. The company reports active users and assets on the platform are up 50% in its first 30 days as a regulated exchange, and is targeting triple the trading volume in 2026.

Why it matters: Against Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Coinbase, and PrizePicks, ProphetX's case rests less on breadth of markets than on sports-native structure and where it places the product—the Players' Lounge integration, for one, reaches a gaming-native audience without building a consumer finance audience from scratch. The unresolved variable is legal—state regulators have won recent rulings against Kalshi in Washington, New York, Massachusetts, and Nevada, and no court has settled whether CFTC oversight preempts state gambling law nationally.

ESX is building a prediction market for the “technical bettors” that sit between Underdog and Novig

The news: ESX is a sports-only prediction market built around live in-game trading, with charting and technical tooling on top, and it's now raising $2M. Co-founder Frank Li joined us on the podcast this week to explain how the startup is aimed at the semi-professional middle of the market—bettors too sophisticated for DraftKings, PrizePicks, and Underdog, but not competing on price the way sharps do on exchanges like Novig. The five-engineer team bootstrapped on about $100K, launched real-money trading roughly three months ago, and has around 1,000 signups.

Zoom in: The reference point for ESX isn't a betting company, but something more akin to Webull, which built a business on day traders while Robinhood took the mass market. Getting to those users meant going through Reddit rather than traditional paid acquisition—having roughly 10,000 conversations with users and prospects to find pain points and gather feedback. Even then, Li admits "getting the answer from our user is not a straight path."

Why it matters: Li's read is that "it feels like there's less defensibility in technology and building," which is why a five-person engineering team runs a content operation that pulled roughly 10M social views across May and June. That conversion math is still thin—Li estimates 100–200 organic users actually traded in a month on the back of its social content. The platform runs on crypto rails, closed to US users, with legal work toward a US app part of what the $2M would fund. The near-term test is whether ESX hits $1M in monthly volume as NFL season arrives.

Listen to the full conversation on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Sponsored content

Flutter's Affiliate Draft 2026 deadline has been extended—so if you missed the original cutoff, you still have time to apply. 

Alpha Hub is looking for startups across three tracks: Fan Toolkit, Community, and Betting Evolution, plus a wildcard category for ideas that could push the affiliate ecosystem forward in ways that don't fit any of the above molds. It's free to apply, with the winner getting a shot at a direct commercial partnership with one of the world's leading sports betting and gaming companies. Apply now by August 16, 12AM EST.

Why Flutter’s Affiliate Draft looks more like a scouting combine than a pitch contest

The news: Flutter's Affiliate Draft returns for a second year, and the two-day final in Dublin on October 21–22 runs more like a scouting combine than a pitch contest. Finalists spend day one meeting Flutter stakeholders "across the business—product, marketing, commercial, you name it," alongside VCs and affiliate startups the operator has already backed. The pitch itself comes second.

Zoom in: Ed Lyttel, who heads affiliate partnerships across Flutter International, describes a room built around fireside chats and open debate, with Flutter coaching finalists to "practice their pitch and hone it" between sessions. The turnaround is fast enough to be the point: "What they presented on day one was sometimes totally different to day two in the actual event," he said. 

Why it matters: The startups that don't win still get pulled in—Lyttel says even shortlisted companies that never made it to Dublin have worked with Flutter in some capacity. For an operator running FanDuel, Sky Bet, Paddy Power and Betfair, the return is a shortlist of founders it has a reason to call. As acquisition costs climb, an event that converts cold applicants into working relationships is a cheaper front door to the next wave of fan products.

News, money, and alpha 🗞️

Great gigs 💼

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

  • 🆕 Bettormetrics is hiring a Full-Stack Product Engineer (Frontend Focus) to build data-rich React and TypeScript applications and analytics tools for sportsbook operators. Remote (UK or significant UK overlap). (View job)

  • Novig is hiring a Product Designer to shape the core sports prediction market experience end-to-end, from concepting features to shipping polished interfaces. Union Square, NYC. (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)

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