EXCLUSIVE: SharpSports and Pine Sports merge to accelerate consumer AI app, B2B product development

The news: SharpSports and Pine Sports have merged, creating a combined business that pairs B2B betting infrastructure with a fast-growing B2C platform. The companies announced the deal exclusively on the BettingStartups Podcast.

SharpSports, founded by Ryan Murphy, powers bet-tracking and data tools for companies like OddsJam, RotoWire, and Covers. Pine Sports is best known for jaXon, a sports-focused LLM that founder Vijay Dewan likens to a “quant in your pocket”—helping users make data-backed decisions on their bets.

“The goal is to bring one infrastructure-based product with a B2C and a B2B brand on top of it to market,” Murphy said.

Zoom in: The deal will help accelerate SharpSports’ product cycles through direct consumer testing and feedback. “We couldn’t always validate new tools that we wanted to build directly,” Murphy said. “It would take a sales cycle to get a new customer to use it, implement it, and then get feedback from their customers before we could iterate. We wanted to have that B2C exposure for quicker iteration.” 

As for Pine Sports, the merger provides access to clean, reliable data to support and enhance jaXon’s capabilities. “You need 100% control over the data,” Dewan said, adding that SharpSports’ infrastructure offered exactly that.

The strategy moving forward will see SharpSports continue running its B2B business while Pine Sports acts as the “alpha customer” to pressure-test new products. Advanced NFL metrics and a white-labeled version of Pine’s AI chat interface are already in the pipeline. “By the time it goes to market as a B2B tool, it’s been validated, vetted, tested,” Murphy explained.

SharpSports has also built a roster of athlete investors and advisors, including Marshawn Lynch, Jonathan Stewart, Ryan Leaf, and Steve Smith Sr. Murphy says the company’s pro sports partners are as “ambitious and competitive” with their media and business careers as they were during their athletic careers.

Meanwhile, Pine Sports is positioning jaXon as the “one-stop shop sports companion,” with around 10,000 users in its Discord community and a subscription model designed to scale during the NFL season. Dewan calls this fall jaXon’s “coming out party,” as the company leans on athlete partnerships and Pine Sports’ 60,000-subscriber newsletter to fuel growth.

Why it matters: Betting tools are evolving fast with AI overlays, subscription revenue, and casual-friendly interfaces. The merger is a bid to own that convergence: infrastructure plus distribution, with professional-grade analytics delivered through a chat interface familiar to mainstream users.

“There’s room for a lot of good tools in the space,” Dewan said, “but no one has really tapped into the casual market.” He hopes the merged product strategy will help them break through the category, adding that the opportunity amongst recreational bettors is “enormous.”

What’s next: The companies say this NFL season will be the proving ground for jaXon and the merged product strategy, with longer-term plans to explore additional tools, strategic investors, and broader B2B rollouts once the season wraps.

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