Syde

Fantasy Sports with Cash Prizes

Company Information

Website:

http://www.sydeapp.com

Sector:

Gaming, Sports & Recreation

Location:

Los Angeles, California

SYDE is a patent-pending fantasy sports platform that empowers users to play quick, simple, daily games by asking users to make a single decision: Choose SYDE 1 or SYDE 2. Whichever SYDE scores the most fantasy points wins.

The company creates compelling fantasy match-ups, eliminating the “team management” elements, position requirements, roster requirements and salary caps from the games. No need for a season-long commitment or to join a league. SYDE offers dozens of match-ups every day at varying game entry amounts ($1-$100) across NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.

SYDE will drive revenue primarily from transaction fees on game entries, with secondary sources coming from licensing and advertising in the out years.

It aims to expand the pie of potential users by offering a product that appeals to the masses. SYDE seeks to establish a foothold in the fantasy sports market before launching into the nascent, high growth social betting and online gaming markets as deregulation accelerates.

Team Background

Rishi Nangia - CEO

Intellectual property and corporate attorney, inventor, and entrepreneur. Seasoned legal and business advisor to the high tech industry, particularly big data, analytics, eCommerce and fantasy sports sectors. Founded and operated a fully-funded, Internet-based debating platform. B.S. Biology, B.A. Psychology (G.W.U)., M.P.H. Epidemiology (Emory), J.D. Law (Northwestern)

Ryan Huss - COO

Ryan has over twelve years of experience and expertise conducting business strategy engagements for Fortune 500 and public sector organizations and growing businesses from customer zero to market success. Ryan was a ground floor employee at Seamless, now public company GrubHub, a high growth internet startup that was listed #4 in the Inc. 500. While at Seamless, Ryan was in charge of expanding the company footprint and opening the first markets outside of the New York city market, where Seamless began.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Mr. Huss has deep experience in the following areas: high-growth product launches and execution, business strategy, small business operations, business and market development, competitive market analysis and product development among others. Mr. Huss has also served in several research and strategic capacities, to include marketing, strategic and financial research for both the internal business development department of Stanley Black & Decker and a boutique marketing research firm.                                                                                                                                                                 Additionally, Mr. Huss was an owner and operator of a large CrossFit gym in Arlington, VA. Ryan has a B.S. in Finance from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. in Strategy and Management from the University of Maryland. As SYDE's COO, Mr. Huss is in charge of executing SYDE's operational and go-to-market strategy.

Ryan Rusnak - Software Engineer

Software Engineer and expert in web application and mobile design. Full stack web developer in Ruby on Rails, JavaScript and a variety of NoSQL databases. B.S. Psychology (Virginia Tech), M.S. Human-Computer Interaction (Carnegie Mellon). Projects have been featured in Popular Science, Wired, Discovery Channel, others.

Seth Bayles - Corporate Counsel

Corporate, finance, and technology contracts attorney with over ten years experience negotiating and drafting commercial, SAAS, vendor, channel, and other complex agreements. B.A. Applied Economics and History (Brandeis), J.D. (Emory), LL.M. (Georgetown)

Sarah Shank - Director of Marketing

Integrated marketing communications professional with 13+ years of developing and launching local/national marketing campaigns and leading communications outreach, social media strategy and brand planning efforts. B.A. Public Communication (American University), M.S. Integrated Marketing Communications (WVU)

Joshua Lily - Designer

Project Manager and digital/print Designer. Full graphic and web design with a customer driven design process / methodology centered on simple and clean aesthetic. B.A. Architecture (Virginia Tech), M.S. Construction Management (Virginia Tech).

Dr. Randy Graves Jr., - Advisor

Dr. Graves is President of Graves Technology Inc. and has over 40 years of experience in aerospace technology research, development, commercialization and management. He served for twenty-six years with NASA, finishing his career as the Director of the Aerodynamics Division in the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology at NASA Headquarters. He has served on numerous managerial and technical panels and committees including being NASA’s member of the White House's Federal Coordinating Council on Science Engineering and Technology Subcommittee on High Performance Computing and as NASA's member of NATO's Advisory Group on Aerospace Research and Development, Fluid Dynamics Panel where he was Chairman of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Subcommittee.

Since leaving NASA, he has been the CEO and Chairman of several start-up companies and continues his technology consulting through Graves Technology Inc., a consulting company he founded in 1991 and has over the years assisted numerous clients in identifying, assessing, and evaluation technologies for commercialization. He has written over forty technology assessment analyses for international clients and completed a Grant from the Department of Energy on Software Technology Transfer. Dr. Graves was awarded a Sloan Fellowship at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 1982. During his career he has published over 60 scientific and technical reports, book sections, conference papers, and magazine articles. He is listed in the Oxford Who’s Who Elite Registry of Extraordinary Individuals, 1992-1993 and in the Sterling Who’s Who Executive Edition, 1994. Dr. Graves holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, a D.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University and an M.S. in Management from Stanford University.

Ed Martinez - Advisor

Mr. Martinez most recently has served as the President & CEO at Xpedir Corp., a global resource provider of technology platforms. Ed has successfully deployed business solutions for emerging business communities to include, branding and positioning of product lines as well as developing and growing organizations while growing market share. Ed has the relationships to work closely with the technology (IT) and R&D resources around the globe, to include Managed Services, Broadband, Wireless, Financial Services, Cloud (SaaS) Based Solutions, Enterprises Cloud Based Contact Center Platforms and Applications, Outsourcing, Fixed, Data, Mobil Content, Media, Mobility and Satellite, serving the enterprise information systems sector.  Mr. Martinez has had diverse experiences involving several venture capital initiatives in the Financial Remittance, Money Transfer field as well as negotiating successfully with the Panamanian Government, for the re-development of a self-contained human resource Information Technology Development tech-center (ITD) and Customer Contact Center. Ed has held senior executive positions including Vice President Latin American Operations for PanAmSat, a satellite based company, where he Opened 2 new Companies with 3 offices in Mexico and Brazil. He launched the US operations for Telefonica de España, Telefonica Data USA, serving as Senior Vice President/Interim CEO. Ed served as Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing for Telscape a facilities-based, integrated communications provider. As Director of Sales & Marketing for AT&T, Ed led the local services sales force in the SE. Ed was Vice President for Marcatel, a telecommunications company providing telecommunications services in Mexico. Ed also served as the Director of Global Sales for Skytel a wireless provider of messaging. Ed started his career at MCI as a Senior National Accounts Sales Manager & Senior Marketing Manager at Corporate Headquarters. Mr. Martinez holds a B.S. in GS/Chemistry from the University of Maryland.

Karl Grover - Advisor

Mr. Grover has broad business experience and a long track record of success in companies ranging from start-ups, established and Fortune 500. He has deep expertise in transactions, development, brand building, operations, marketing and strategy. Most recently, Karl has been focused and involved in the Maryland entrepreneur ecosystem which has led to successful engagements with the Maryland Entrepreneur Resource List, Investments and brand launching activities with startup companies. Mr. Grover currently serves as a TEDCO loaned executive with Whitebox, a Baltimore based business focused on automating ecommerce.

The foundation of Karl’s success was laid while leading various businesses of ever increasing size and complexity with Marriott International. As the leader of the Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites franchise businesses, Karl achieved and sustained an excellent record of success. The success was defined by consistent growth in sales from $700M to $1.8B, profitability from $40M to $94.6M, the highest RevPAR Index in the industry 128+, among the highest guest satisfaction scores in the industry 85%+ and capped off by an unprecedented 98% owner satisfaction. The results were achieved through collaboration with internal and external groups, alignment on the agreed upon path and appropriate system and process design to deliver the results.  Karl is fanatical about developing analytics, tools and systems to allow clients to operate their businesses more efficiently. Mr. Grover holds a B.S. in Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Joseph Breeden - Advisor

Dr. Breeden has almost 20 years of experience in financial services. Prior to founding Prescient Models, he co-founded Strategic Analytics in 1999, where he led the design of advanced analytic solutions including the invention of Dual-time Dynamics. In addition to lending analytics, Dr. Breeden has built models for various industries, including four years predicting outcomes for NBA, NCAA Basketball, NHL, and Golf. Much of that work is still in production today.

Dr. Breeden has created models through the 1995 Mexican Peso Crisis, the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis, the 2001 Global Recession, the 2003 Hong Kong SARS Recession, and the 2007-2009 US Mortgage Crisis and Global Financial Crisis. These crises have provided Dr. Breeden with a rare perspective on crisis management and the analytics needs of executives for strategic decision-making. His book “Reinventing Retail Lending Analytics: Forecasting, Stress Testing, Capital, and Scoring for a World of Crises” was published by Riskbooks in 2010. He currently serves as associate editor for the Journal of Risk Model Validation. Dr. Breeden founded Prescient Models LLC to expand the adoption of best-in-class models across many application areas. Whether via consulting or product development partnerships, Prescient models helps its clients develop a better vision of the future through modeling and analytics. The recent financial crises highlighted for everyone the inadequacy of overly simplistic past approaches. Presicent Models also helps clients improve the techniques with which businesses, lenders, and government regulators judge the effectiveness of their models.

Co-Investors

Raising
$1 million
Committed
$15.333K (2%)
Current Valuation
$2.5 million
Min. Investment
$250000
Deal Type
Title III
(For all investors)
Offering Type
Equity
Finance History
Notable Investors
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