This week: Catena Growth Ventures makes first disclosed investment in Repackz.fun

Catena Growth Ventures makes first disclosed investment in Repackz.fun

The news: Catena Media has made a strategic investment in Collectbase Inc., the US parent company of Repackz.fun, a B2B platform that lets iGaming operators, brands, and publishers offer pack ripping under their own name. It is the first deal from Catena Growth Ventures, the group’s investment and partnership arm. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Zoom in: The deal is commercial as well as financial: Catena will introduce Repackz to operators and publishers in its network, and the partnership also includes Collectibles.com, Collectbase’s app for collectors to organize, value, and share their collections. Repackz offers real, graded collectibles with sourcing, vaulting, and fulfillment handled for its clients, said Dietrich von Behren, Collectbase’s co-founder and chief business and strategy officer. Catena CEO Manuel Stan says its venture arm will contribute “capital, operator relationships and distribution” to the deal.

Why it matters: Stan called the deal “a further step in diversifying our revenue streams” for Catena, a Nasdaq Stockholm-listed lead-generation business for casino and sportsbook operators. Pack ripping is pulling in B2B suppliers fast, and last week B2Bux pitched operators a similar turnkey model. For Repackz, a partner with an existing operator network may matter as much as the capital.

Maincard can launch a casino in minutes, but it often talks founders out of it

The news: Maincard founder and CEO Valerii Makovetskii joined the BettingStartups Podcast to talk about the white-label platform it calls the Shopify for iGaming. Brands now go live in seven and a half minutes across casino, sportsbook, lottery, prediction markets, and card rips, he said, with Maincard running the back office and partners bringing the players.

Zoom in: Maincard works on revenue share, so it often tries to talk would-be operators out of launching. “Most of the time what we do when we see the person might not be ready, we try to talk them out of it instead of just taking their money and building the brand for them and leaving them hanging,” Makovetskii said. Three of its 30 brands have closed since it launched in January, he said, and it will cover a few losing months for brands it sees heading toward profit.

Why it matters: Maincard closed a $7M round earlier this month, and Makovetskii sees talent—athletes, musicians, and YouTubers reached through their agencies—as its biggest source of new brands next year. It has also built MainCard.com, banking for high-risk businesses, and plans to launch a fashion brand built on pack openings at the end of December. The 12-month targets are 60 active brands and $100M in revenue across them.

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

Bet Max Action wants operators to run poker-style tournaments under their own brand

The news: David Reiter’s Bet Max Action has launched Bet Max Tourney, a free-to-play app on iOS and Android. Every player in a tournament starts with the same stack of Tournament Dollars (TD$), bets it on real game odds, and competes on a live leaderboard that moves as games settle.

Zoom in: Tournaments run on straight bets and parlays across more than 27 leagues, and TD$ have no cash value. To qualify for the final rankings, a player has to put the entire stack in play, so nobody wins by sitting on a lead. Seven game modes, from Longshot to Survivor, change the route to the top, and friends can run private contests through Bet Max Pools.

Why it matters: The same engine is for sale. Through Bet Max Partner Tools, casinos, iGaming operators, leagues, and media brands can launch a hosted tournament app with their own branding, embed tournament cards, or build on the API, and the company says a hosted app can be live in days. “We built Bet Max to supplement the sportsbook, not replace it,” Reiter said.

• Crowds Line AI won White Swan Predicts’ NEXT Gen Traders final and a $3M trading allocation.

• ParlayX partnered with EDGE Markets to give trading firms instant, free transfers between Kalshi, ProphetX, and Polymarket U.S.

• Underdog partnered with zerohash to let users fund prediction market and fantasy accounts with stablecoins and crypto.

• The CFTC paused Novig’s first-points micro contracts and ProphetX’s scorigami contracts before either was listed.

• 🆕 Pikkit is hiring for several roles across product, engineering, and UGC. Engineering roles are onsite in New York City; UGC Lead is remote (US). (View jobs)

• 🆕 Griddy is seeking a Product Intern and a Growth Marketing Intern for paid, part-time 8-week internships with its product and growth teams. In-person — Santa Monica, Los Angeles. (View jobs)

• SharpSports is hiring a Backend / Full-Stack Software Engineer to build new integrations with sportsbooks, prediction markets, and other sports data providers. New York City, remote or hybrid. (View job)

• 🆕 A well-funded sweepstakes casino is looking for a CEO to take full ownership of the business and drive its next stage of growth. Sofia, Europe. (View job)

• Raising $7m to build "the Shopify for iGaming" w/ Val Makovetskii from Maincard

• Turnkey tech for the $4B digital pack-ripping market w/ Viktor Atanasovski from B2Bux

• Pioneering the "Studio as a service" model w/ Sandra Wong from Lucky Lady Games

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