Why we invested in Omada

Today we announced our participation in the seed round for Omada alongside Felix Capital, 20VC, Play Ventures and several other investors.

Omada is a social sports prediction company based in Paris, France. Under the tagline, “No Bet Regret”, they offer a 100% free sports betting gameplay experience.

Omada isn’t a game, exactly —it’s a community-driven challenge that allows sports fans to challenge their friends through free predictions on games in football, basketball (NBA), tennis, baseball (in Japan), NHL, NFL and Formula One racing.

Players don't seek financial rewards; the real prize is securing the top spot on the leaderboard, outpacing colleagues, friends, family, and fellow sports enthusiasts. 

Their intuition, which is being proven out by strong early traction, is that the real-money aspect of sports betting is a significant barrier to enjoyment for a broader audience.

By removing real money wagering and focusing on gameplay innovation, Omada substantially increases its appeal. There is an element of counter-positioning at work here: sports betting is compelling, but the real-money aspect poses a significant ethical challenge that incumbents have a hard time acknowledging and will certainly not abandon.

Regardless, this approach - take a proven premium experience and reduce friction by making it free to play - has been repeatedly successful in the games industry and we see a similar pattern emerging here. Omada currently has over 300,000 monthly players in France and more than 1M worldwide, with exceptional retention of 25% at Day 30.

I’ve talked before about the importance of a differentiated go to market strategy, and the company is having a lot of success here - by building relationships with passionate fans over social media and working with sports figures and creators as ambassadors as they roll out support for games and geographies, they are benefiting from above average organic growth.

You can download and play Omada on Android and iOS.

You can learn more about F4 Fund here.