Boom Fantasy raises $2M, betting that fans want a simpler version of fantasy sports

Daily fantasy sports are too complicated for the average fan. Or at least that’s the thesis behind Boom Fantasy, a daily fantasy sports experience designed for the everyday sports fan.

Instead of sorting through thousands of players to craft lineups from scratch, Boom Fantasy players answer a series of simple questions – like “who will score more points tonight, Lebron James or Steph Curry?” Each answer is assigned a point value – so if you get that question right you’ll get a certain number of points.

Users pay cash to enter contests, and whoever gets the most points (i.e., most questions right) wins. Lineups are created in a matter of minutes, meaning it’s much more fun for the casual fan who doesn’t want to spend hours analyzing statistics and managing a salary cap.

And so far, it seems like sports fans agree. Revenue has grown 10x year-over-year, and today Boom Fantasy is announcing a $2M Seed round led by Founders Fund, with participation from other notable sports executives and owners from ESPN and an MLB team. The startup was founded by Steve Murphy and Assaf Einat, who met at Stanford where they founded the company with a angel investment from Mark Pincus.

The company also announced today that they are acquiring Draftpot, another player in the daily fantasy sports world. The acquisition is mainly a way for Boom Fantasy to acquire new users – all balances and users accounts from Draftpot will transfer as part of the deal.

Also, Boom Fantasy will get the technology that powered Draftpot, which was a more traditional lineup-focused fantasy sports product. So while Boom Fantasy has no current plans to offer a more traditional fantasy product, now they’ll have the technology available if they ever choose to enter that category.

In terms of legality, Boom Fantasy sees itself as operating within the same legal guidelines in which all other full-fledged daily fantasy sports operate. This has been partially affirmed by the fact that the Mississippi Gaming Commission has explicitly approved Boom Fantasy to operate in the state under the same framework that companies like DraftKings and FanDuel operate under.

While they certainly have had a head start, Boom Fantasy isn’t the only company focused on making daily fantasy sports more accessible to casual fans. Even FanDuel, one of the largest players in the space, recently launched a product called MixUp that is essentially a “lite” version of fantasy sports where your roster is limited to just five players.

While there’s no doubt that the business of fantasy sports is huge, as it stands there just aren’t enough die-hard sports fans willing to spend hours on the strategy and analytics necessary to really win big contests. So expect this trend of simplification to continue spreading throughout the industry, whether through simplified versions of line-up focused fantasy sports, or entirely new products like the one offered by Boom Fantasy.