iCasino Startup Betty Raised $5m in Latest Seed Round

Betty, a new iGaming startup sitting at the intersection of online casino and casual mobile gaming, announced its latest seed round led by Karlani Capital has raised $5 million, attracting interest from a number of investment funds.

Online Slot Players in the Focus

The new funding round for the American-Bulgarian real-money entertainment startup saw interest from other investors, including CEAS Investments, Courtside Ventures, Gaingels, OCA Venture, Subversive Capital and 305 Ventures.

The new seed round is the second funding round for the startup that is headquartered in New York and has an R&D office in Bulgaria, following its pre-seed funding in March 2022 which raised $1.8 million.

Gaingels, a private investment syndicate that participated in Betty’s seed round commented that, while historically sports betting and casinos had been marketed to men, more than half of these markets are made by women, and they admire “Betty’s mission to make the category more inclusive.”

Founded in 2022 by Vlad Pavlov, Chavdar Dimitrov, Jordan Tuch, Annie Zeng, and Justin Park, Betty has identified a large audience of casual iCasino customers – women playing slots – who remain underserved by existing online casino brands which in their core functions operate as sportsbooks.

Leveraging its founders’ collective experience of over 50 years in iCasino technology, Betty seeks to maximize the entertainment value of this underserved market group by offering them an entertaining gaming experience that is safe, social and inclusive.

Ontario Launch and Platform Development

The proceeds of the funding round will be used to speed up Betty’s launch in the Canadian province of Ontario where it was issued a gaming license by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission (AGCO) in January and is anticipating soft launching operations this month. Betty’s full-scale go-to-market in Ontario is expected to take place in the second business quarter of 2023.

Money raised from the seed round will also go towards the continued development of the company’s proprietary online casino platform and its specifications tailor-made for markets in North America.

The team of Betty’s founders was behind the creation of QL Gaming Group, a direct-to-consumer sports data and iGaming affiliate platform headquartered in New York that was acquired by Audacy, a free broadcast and radio platform.