Sports tech company TAPPP raises $10 million in new funding

TAPPP — a New York-based tech and marketing company focused on payments for watching sports and sports betting — has raised $10 million in Series B funding, CEO Sandy Agarwal tells Axios.

Why it matters: Online sports betting has gained popularity as more U.S. states legalize it and consumer interest grows. Now betting platforms are looking for ways to make real-time payments easier.

• "Every single end device is now cash register. Our ability for you to conduct a transaction, connect with anything you like directly from your TV screen is ... pretty powerful," Agarwal says.

Details: The round was co-led by Accomplice and Verance Capital.

• Participants included Stephen Pagliuca of the Boston Celtics and Peter Tomozawa of the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Sounders along with ADvantage, Permit Ventures and Oakvale Capital. 
• TAPPP has raised more than $21 million in total. ADvantage, Accomplice and Elysian Park led its Series A in 2018 with participation from Go4it, Courtside VC and Sterling.VC.
• Agarwal declined to disclose TAPPP's valuation or share any other financial figures.

Background: Agarwal was inspired to launch TAPPP because he couldn't watch Cleveland Browns games while living in Singapore. He started in 2014 from his dining room table, focused on prepaid gift cards for buying access to watch games.

• Agarwal incorporated TAPPP in the U.S. in 2018, moved the business to New York and began working on payments for sports betting.

How it works: The company offers prepaid gift cards for MLB.TV, NFL Game Pass and BetMGM. The gift cards for watching games are available for thousands of retailers across all 50 states while sports betting gift cards are in nine states with plans to be in 15 by the end of the year.

• TAPPP also created tech infrastructure for live sports betting that enables transactions. On Tuesday, it announced a partnership with Major League Rugby and The Rugby Network, which will use that tech called the TAPPP Portal.

• "When I click Place Bet, the verification of the location, wallet balance, making sure I'm in an approved state, making sure the odds haven't shifted significantly — all of that is happening," TAPPP's head of marketing Daniel Arvidsson says.

What's next: Agarwal says the new funding will be used to launch in more states and with more sportsbooks. TAPPP plans to grow from 20 to 45 employees this year.