By Jacob Fortinsky, Co-Founder + CEO  

Novig — America’s #1 sports prediction market — has raised an $18 million Series A led by Forerunner, with participation from Y Combinator, NFX, Perceptive Ventures, and Gaingels.

But before I talk about what this milestone means and what’s next, I want to talk about why we started Novig in the first place.

WHY NOVIG

I first got into prediction markets in college, trading on political news. I was struck by how efficient, engaging, and generally accurate these markets were. You had real-time, two-sided markets clearing on price, just like with equities or crypto markets. 

Then I looked at retail sportsbooks and couldn’t understand why nothing similar existed for sports. Skilled bettors were getting limited or banned. Everyone else was paying steep “vig” and losing big.

The demand was obvious — consumer interest in sports predictions was skyrocketing — but the core product hadn’t evolved in decades. 

In many ways, the state of the industry felt similar to what transportation looked like before Uber or hospitality before Airbnb, where there was growing demand yet supply constraints that created massive inefficiencies and subpar user experiences. 

So my cofounder Kelechi and I asked the obvious question: what if we built a real market?

A platform where users trade with each other, not against the house. Where prices reflect supply and demand. Where winning is rewarded, not penalized. Where the product isn’t a casino dressed up as a sportsbook — but an actual marketplace.

That’s Novig. Four years later, we’re seeing what happens when you give users the kind of market they should’ve had all along.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

Since launching Novig last September, we’ve seen nearly a 100x increase in monthly trading volume on both Novig Coins and Novig Cash, and we’ve surpassed 2 billion in annualized volume of Novig Cash.

And we’ve done it with a lean team, relying on the word of mouth of the Novig community and the power of efficient markets. 

The growth has been organic, bottom-up, and driven by users who get it. Novig users are 3x more likely to stay on our platform compared to our peers — a testament to the product and ecosystem we’ve built.  

One of the clearest signs of product-market fit has been how trading behavior shifted. Early on, we provided liquidity to the platform to ensure that our users always had a counterparty. Now, over 90% of trades are fully peer-to-peer — just real people trading with each other. That’s what the product was designed to do, and it’s working.

What’s fueled our growth isn’t just better odds or a smarter product – it’s accessibility. Every new user gets a stack of Novig Coins and Novig Cash just for signing up, with no purchase required. There’s always a way to play for free, so that anyone can experience the thrill of trading and the power of peer-to-peer markets, risk-free.

WHAT’S NEXT

This raise is a reflection of that momentum — and of how deeply our investors believe in what we’re building.

We’re using this capital to scale our team, expand into more sports and markets, and bring true marketplace dynamics to other game formats sports fans already love.   

Novig is already the #1 sports prediction market in the United States. And we’re just getting started.

We’ve recently added five new sports including golf, tennis, and combat sports, and rolled out 25+ new market types, including futures markets and thousands of daily props.

We’re also accelerating our product velocity: we’re going to launch more payment methods like cards and stablecoins, a full web app, more sports and categories, and a slate of social features like leaderboards and group contests.

We’re also laying the groundwork to bring even more transparency and rigor to the space — continuing to build toward a future where not only is every market available, but every American has access. 

We are becoming the obvious choice for every sports fan. Whether you care about price, product, or variety of markets, Novig will have the best version of what you’re looking for. 

A shift is happening. More and more sports fans are looking for a better way to make predictions — one that’s transparent, fair, and, most importantly, incredibly fun. 

And we’re excited to be at the forefront of that movement.