Fantasy Sports App Sleeper Rises With $40 Million

<p><strong><span class&equals;"xn-location">SAN FRANCISCO <&sol;span><&sol;strong>&&num;8212&semi; Sleeper&comma; which operates a fast-growing fantasy sports app&comma; has awoken with a &dollar;40 million Series C fundraising round&period; This round of funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz&comma; who was also the lead investor in Sleeper&&num;8217&semi;s Series B round&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"col-sm-10 col-sm-offset-1">&NewLine;<p>Founded in 2018&comma; the company said it has more than doubled its user base this year&comma; exceeding 3 million active users&comma; it now also boasts a top-50 user retention ranking in the app store&period; According to Sleeper CEO&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Nan Wang<&sol;span>&comma; when people enter Sleeper&&num;8217&semi;s fantasy sports world&comma; they stay&comma; and they engage&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"col-sm-10 col-sm-offset-1">&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Our mission from day one has been to bring people together through sports and that&&num;8217&semi;s what we&&num;8217&semi;re seeing happening inside of our app&period; Typically&comma; when a product doubles its user base&comma; engagement goes down&period; That hasn&&num;8217&semi;t been the case for Sleeper&period; As we&&num;8217&semi;ve exceeded our own growth expectations this year&comma; our engagement has gone up&period; Sleeper is more than a fantasy sports app&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a place to hang out with your friends&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;s for that reason that our users stay active and keep coming back&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>General Partners David George and <span class&equals;"xn-person">Andrew Chen<&sol;span> co-led the investment on behalf of Andreessen Horowitz&period; In addition&comma; all prior existing lead investors also participated in the round&period; Notable angel investors include current and former NBA athletes <span class&equals;"xn-person">Klay Thompson<&sol;span> &lpar;Thompson Family Foundation&rpar;&semi; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Shane Battier<&sol;span>&semi; and <span class&equals;"xn-person">Baron Davis<&sol;span>&comma; NFL cornerback <span class&equals;"xn-person">Byron Jones<&sol;span>&comma; sports commentator Ros Gold-Onwude&comma; Twitch and Gold House co-founder <span class&equals;"xn-person">Kevin Lin<&sol;span>&comma; NerdWallet co-founder <span class&equals;"xn-person">Tim Chen<&sol;span>&comma; and Thirty Five Ventures co-founders <span class&equals;"xn-person">Rich Kleiman<&sol;span> and <span class&equals;"xn-person">Kevin Durant<&sol;span> are also investors in the company&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Sleeper&&num;8217&semi;s multiplayer experience is all about helping sports fans connect with their friends&comma; leading to strong engagement&comma; retention&comma; and organic growth&&num;8211&semi;similar to what we can see on social apps<span id&equals;"spanHghlt94a3">&comma;&&num;8221&semi; <&sol;span>said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Andrew Chen<&sol;span>&comma; general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and Sleeper board member&period; &&num;8220&semi;I&&num;8217&semi;m thrilled my partners leading the a16z growth fund wanted to invest further as the Sleeper team builds the go-to sporting community&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Sleeper plans to use the new funds to expand the game offerings on its platform and is in the process of building a new feature called Wallet that will enable users to sync their preferred payment methods to the platform&period; According to Wang&comma; all Sleeper users currently transact with each other in one way or another off-platform&comma; and Wallet will bring all sports-related transactions on-platform&comma; enabling Sleeper to monetize in a natural way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;