Novig Raises $75M Series B to Build The Future of Sports Betting

By Jacob Fortinsky, Co-Founder & CEO

Today, I’m excited to announce that Novig has raised a $75 million Series B, led by Pantera Capital with participation from Multicoin Capital, Makers Fund, Edge Equity, and existing investors Forerunner, NFX, and Perceptive Ventures. This round brings our total capital raised to over $105 million since launching in late 2024. Over the last year, we’ve proven product-market fit in a way that’s hard to ignore. In 2025 alone, our trading volume grew more than 10×, reaching 4 billion of annualized platform volume. We’re proud to say that Novig is now the fastest-growing sports trading platform in America — a clear validation that sports traders are hungry for a fundamentally better model.

But this story isn’t really about fundraising or growth charts. It’s about why the sports betting industry needs to change and why my co-founder Kelechi Ukah and I started Novig in the first place.

Sports Betting Is Broken

I started Novig five years ago, during my senior year of college, after becoming deeply interested in prediction markets. My first real trade was on Brexit, shortly after graduating high school, and I was hooked — not just by the profit, but by the realization that markets could serve as a source of truth. When designed correctly, prediction markets aggregate information efficiently, transparently, and fairly.

When I turned my attention to sports betting, I was stunned. Here was a global industry with more than $2 trillion in betting volume, yet it was technologically outdated, structurally inefficient, and designed to extract as much money as possible from losing bettors. The dominant sportsbook model pits every bettor against the house, relies on hidden fees and unfair odds, and actively punishes winning players through limits and bans.

That’s not a market. That’s a rigged game.

Even more striking was the contrast with political betting markets, which were orders of magnitude smaller in volume, yet far more efficient and consumer-friendly. The difference was obvious: sports betting wasn’t broken because it was hard. It was broken by design.

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‍A Trader-First Alternative

Novig was founded on a simple idea: what if sports betting worked like a real market?

Instead of betting against the house, Novig operates a commission-free, peer-to-peer exchange where traders compete against one another on a level playing field. There’s no hidden “vig.” No unfair odds. No punitive limits for winning.

That level playing field may sound obvious, but it’s something most prediction markets still haven’t delivered consistently, and it’s become our core differentiator.

By cutting out the middleman, we’ve built the most equitable sports trading platform in the industry — one where users are treated like traders, not customers to be exploited. As a result, Novig users are up to 10× more likely to win in the long-run than on traditional sportsbooks, and they will never be banned simply for winning. 

That trader-first philosophy is what’s driven our growth. In a single year, over 100,000 traders flocked to Novig because it finally aligned incentives in their favor.‍

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What We’re Building Next: CFTC-Regulated Prediction Market  

We believe we’re at the beginning of a much larger paradigm shift. Sports betting and financial markets are converging, and prediction markets are evolving into true trading platforms shaped by the same principles that power modern exchanges: transparency, efficiency, liquidity, and fairness. That’s exactly what the next generation of traders expect, and exactly what Novig was built to deliver from day one.

We have submitted our application to the CFTC and are diligently working to make the transition to be available to Americans in every single state. 

But we’ve also seen firsthand that regulation alone doesn’t fix the user experience. Odds are often worse than sportsbooks. Fans can’t place any parlay they want. Users are placed on waitlists. Institutions and normal sports fans are treated differently. This was not the intended outcome for this industry, and we intend to fix it. 

So we’re building the platform we always wished existed: one with the best odds, real competition for every trade, industry-first functionality that bridges the best aspects of traditional sports betting and modern finance exchanges, and an experience that feels as dynamic as the games themselves.

Others are using prediction market technology to financialize new markets with unproven demand. We leverage it to fix broken markets where demand already exists.

We’re investing heavily in product innovation, onboarding deeper institutional liquidity, and launching first-of-its-kind functionality that blends the sophistication of financial markets with the excitement of live sports. 

We’ve been intentional about both who we partner with and who we hire. Several of the world’s leading crypto venture firms now sit on our cap table — investors who deeply understand how to build global, liquid, market-based platforms and who are helping us accelerate our roadmap. 

At the same time, we’ve scaled our team to more than 50 operators, engineers, and experts with deep experience in regulated exchanges, market structure and sports trading. Together, we’re building Novig to be the most efficient, liquid, transparent, and fair sports prediction market in the world.

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The Future of Sports Betting 

At Novig, we believe the future of sports betting is trader-first, trusted, and transparent. We believe markets — not casinos — should set prices. And we believe sports prediction markets should be as fair and efficient as any modern financial exchange.

Whether you love sports betting or hate it, it’s here to stay. It’s legal, nationwide, and culturally embedded. The question isn’t whether the market will exist; it’s whether it will finally work for the people who participate in it.

Thanks for joining us on our journey. We’re just getting started. 

Onward!
Jacob