ALT Sports Data raises $5 million to expand betting access to niche sports

ALT Sports Data, a startup focused on sports betting opportunities in emerging and lifestyle sports, has secured $5 million in seed funding, the company announced last week. The round was co-led by Eberg Capital and Relay Ventures, with participation from Motley Fool Ventures, Scrum Ventures, and a group of individual investors.

Founded by former GoPro executives Joe Dunnigan and Todd Ballard, ALT Sports Data partners with sports leagues and sportsbooks to supply real-time data and odds. While the company operates in the same space as major providers like Sportradar and Genius Sports, it is carving out a distinctive niche by concentrating on sports that traditionally receive limited attention in the betting world.

“There are a lot of leagues out there that are not the NFL, the MLB, the NBA, that, quite frankly, I feel have been systemically set up for failure in sports betting because there’s just no real innovation or thought put into them,” said Ballard, the company’s chief marketing officer, in an interview with Business Insider. “Why can’t we bet on a bunch of these sports like surfing and motocross?”

The company works with a growing list of sports leagues, including the World Surf League, X Games, and Formula 1, the latter of which recently named ALT Sports Data its official betting data supplier. Top-tier sportsbooks such as FanDuel and DraftKings use the startup’s services, helping to bring betting options for niche sports to wider audiences.

Ballard said the new funding will be used to deepen the company’s technological offerings and expand its ecosystem of partners, with a focus on four core areas: league services, product development, media, and original game creation. These services include building the back-end infrastructure that allows sports organizations to support betting, as well as data science, distribution, and engagement tools tailored to individual leagues.

ALT Sports Data also runs NXTbets, a media platform that operates as an affiliate site by directing traffic to sportsbook operators. Similar to companies like Catena Media and Better Collective, NXTbets combines betting odds and content to drive user engagement. 

The company is now expanding beyond traditional sports betting, developing its own peer-to-peer, social, daily fantasy, and free-to-play games. “We’re not saying we want to exclusively create games just for us,” Ballard said in the interview. “We do think we can show how it should be done.”

With about 25 sports and leagues currently in its portfolio, spanning combat, action, motor, and other non-mainstream disciplines, the company believes that lifestyle and alternative sports offer untapped potential. Ballard noted that these sports often have large, passionate fan bases but limited representation on major betting platforms.

“Emerging niche sports have these massive audiences behind them that are pretty passionate, and give the leagues a new point of engagement, a new opportunity to drive more fans to their sport, and ultimately drive new revenue streams into them,” he said.