• Media mogul Jake Paul partners with sports betting entrepreneur Joey Levy to launch Betr
• Betr is the first direct-to-consumer micro-betting focused sports betting company
• The company is backed by a host of famous athletes, as well as Tampa-based Florida Funders

Social media personality turned professional boxer Jake Paul has launched a new sports betting company in the Sunshine State.

Partnering with sports entrepreneur Joey Levy, Paul announced the creation of Betr on Monday. Headquartered in Miami, Betr will be the first direct-to-consumer micro-betting focused sports betting company. The company will be built around micro-betting, allowing fans to bet during the event on things that are about to happen in real time, instead of traditional “outcome-based” betting (i.e. betting winners/losers, spreads, over/under, etc.).

“I wasn’t into sports betting until I was introduced to micro-betting,” said Paul, Founder and President of Betr. “Micro-betting is the TikTok-ification of sports betting and I am excited to bring it to the masses through Betr. We are in this for the long haul and are focused on doing things the right way. We are getting licensed state-by-state, adhering to each state’s regulatory framework while advocating for important consumer protections and responsible gambling. We want to be the category defining consumer company in both sports betting and sports media by the end of the decade and are confident we will achieve that goal.”

Paul, who boasts more than 70 million followers on social media and is one of the most searched public figures on Google, kicked off the launch of Betr’s media company with a video series called BS With Jake Paul. The show will feature Jake, alongside famous celebrities celebrity, taking fans on a “journey across the landscape of sports and sports betting through the eyes of an A-list athlete.”

The company has also hired Bleacher Report veteran Mike Denevi to serve as Betr’s head of media.

Levy, who is also a co-founder of the gambling technology company Simplebet, says that Betr will be using Simplebet’s tech as it builds out its own betting business.

“I co-founded Simplebet to simplify the sports betting user experience – to reconsider why sports betting products felt uninterpretable to the casual fan who had never bet on sports before,” said Levy, Founder and CEO of Betr. “In doing so, we discovered that the technology required to enable a scalable micro-betting platform around the moments that drive U.S. sports did not yet exist, given the global market’s focus was on soccer, a fluid sport without a natural start and stop cadence. So we decided to build it ourselves at Simplebet; however, years later, the user experience remains unintuitive for a mass market consumer.

While the company will focus on micro-betting, the list of investors is anything but small. Betr has raised $50 million in funding from influential athletes and sports team owners including Co-Owners of San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics, Miami Marlins, Travis Scott, Ezekiel Elliott, Richard Sherman, Dez Bryant, DeSean Jackson, and Braxton Berrios.

Betr is also backed by a wide range of investors, including venture funds like Florida Funders, 8vc and Aliya Capital Partners. Florida Funders, a Tampa firm, invested $5 million into the company.

“Florida Funders saw a massive opportunity in a nascent market where the legacy players have not been strong from product, technology, and cultural relevance standpoints,” said Saxon Baum at Florida Funders. “In addition to the market opportunity, the ability to back Joey Levy for the third time – having invested early with Joey in Simplebet and in 305 Ventures – was something we could not pass up on. In addition to Jake Paul, Joey has surrounded himself with great people, including Alex Ursa and Mike Denevi. We could not be more excited about the future of Betr – and are thrilled to be on this journey as this team changes sports betting and sports media in the U.S.”

I am so excited to publicly announce @betr with @jakepaul today. This company feels like the culmination of my life’s work to date — and the beginning of an incredible journey with some amazing people. I wrote about it here. LFG!!!https://t.co/75AWZqyr4X

— Joey Levy (@joeyslevy) August 8, 2022