Led by managing partner Lloyd Danzig, the advisory firm, which specialises in sports betting, mainly invests in early-stage gambling technology companies. So far it has made 11 investments which include motorsport fantasy operator GridRivel, gambling exchange Prophet and free-to-play platform PickUp.
The group intends to spend half of the $10m on initial commitments and reserve the rest for follow-up investments into several portfolio companies.
Sharp Alpha offers both capital, and strategic advice, to smaller tech providers and platforms that look to breakthrough.
Danzig explained: “We are backed by some of the largest VC funds in the entire world, ones that everyone has heard of, and that’s important because that is what allows us to help guide our portfolio companies. Not just in the seed and Series A rounds that we’re participating in, but then hand off those portfolio companies to our backers who are the experts in Series B, Series C, IPO and beyond.”
Alpha Advisors has assembled an advisory board of industry and financial executives, consisting of Don Kornstein (Vice Chairman of Caesars), Keith Horn (former COO of Eliott Management), Daniel Bernard (a venture partner at Mindspring Capital) and Adam Davis (a former Executive at Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment).
The group says it is already working on a second investment vehicle (which could be another fund, a holding company, or both).
Danzig concluded: “My guess is that those will open up early next year when we’re done making the initial investments out of fund one.”
