Fantasy Life
Building technology that gives the DFS, fantasy, and betting communities an outsized advantage.
Website: https://www.fantasylife.com
Cover Block
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Fantasy Life |
| Tagline | Building technology that gives the DFS, fantasy, and betting communities an outsized advantage. |
| Headquarters | New York, United States |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry | Media / Entertainment |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder (Matthew Berry) |
| Funding Label | Seed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$7,000,000 |
Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fantasy-life-media
- LinkedIn (alt): https://www.linkedin.com/company/fantasylifeapp
- Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fantasy-life
- PitchBook: https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/519854-95
Summary and Signal
Fantasy Life is a New York based fantasy sports media and technology company founded in 2020 by NBC Sports analyst Matthew Berry. It is attempting to convert a recognizable personal brand in fantasy football into an owned software platform as the category consolidates around tech-first operators [Business Insider, Jul 2025] [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025]. The company began as a free morning football newsletter and mobile app delivering injury tracking, news alerts, and game-day reports, and it has since expanded into community tools and a content engine targeting DFS, season-long fantasy, and sports betting audiences [Crunchbase]. In July 2025, Fantasy Life closed a $7 million seed round led by LRMR Ventures and SC Holdings, alongside a bench of strategic angels including David Blitzer, Jeff Shell, Roger Ehrenberg, John Legend, Chad Hurley, and Larry Fitzgerald [Crunchbase, Jul 2025]. Proceeds are funding the launch of Fantasy HQ, a personalized hub for player insights and league tools, and the buildout of Guillotine Leagues, a knockout-format league product the company acquired and where reported average session time is 22 minutes [Business Insider, Jul 2025] [CasinoBeats, Jul 2025]. The business model is B2C, designed to convert free content readers into users of premium tools and gameplay features, with a planned full redesign across web, iOS, and Android and a Fantasy Life+ tier [Business Insider, Jul 2025]. Berry is a solo founder, with reported senior hires including Matthew Swing and Dan Kaufman [LinkedIn]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the items worth watching are the conversion rate from newsletter audience to Fantasy HQ active users, the retention curve on Guillotine Leagues during the 2025 NFL season, and whether the company can layer paid game mechanics without crossing into regulated DFS or sportsbook territory.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, Business Insider, and Sports Business Journal.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Media / Entertainment, Fantasy Sports |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder |
| Funding | ~$7M disclosed seed |
Company Overview
Fantasy Life was founded in 2020 by Matthew Berry, the longtime ESPN and current NBC Sports fantasy analyst, and is headquartered in New York [PitchBook] [ZoomInfo]. The company started as a free daily football email and a companion mobile app, positioning itself to give everyday fantasy and DFS players the kind of edge that historically required a paid subscription stack across multiple sites [Crunchbase]. The product surface initially included breaking news alerts, injury tracking, and game-day reports [LinkedIn].
The July 2025 seed round of $7 million, led by LRMR Ventures and SC Holdings, was announced alongside the unveiling of Fantasy HQ and the acquisition of Guillotine Leagues, a knockout-style fantasy format [Crunchbase, Jul 2025] [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025]. The round formalizes the company's transition from a content brand into a technology and gaming platform [World Casino Directory]. Berry remains the public face and creative anchor, while reported senior staff include Matthew Swing and Dan Kaufman [LinkedIn].
Fantasy Life operates in the same broader ecosystem as Betsperts Media and Technology Group, which lists a Fantasy Life App among its brands in a separate Crunchbase profile, a relationship readers should clarify directly with the company given that the operating entity for the Berry-led business is distinct [Crunchbase].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, PitchBook, and Sports Business Journal.
The Product and the Stack
The product portfolio spans three layers: a free content layer (the daily football newsletter and the mobile app), a community and tools layer being repackaged under the new Fantasy HQ brand as a personalized hub for player insights, real-time data, and league management tools [CasinoBeats, Jul 2025], and a gameplay layer anchored by Guillotine Leagues, the knockout-format league product the company acquired in 2025 [Fantasy Life, Jul 2025]. According to the pitch deck reviewed by Business Insider, the company plans a full redesign across web, iOS, and Android and the introduction of a paid Fantasy Life+ tier carrying premium tools and additional content [Business Insider, Jul 2025].
Guillotine Leagues is the most differentiated piece of the stack. Each week the lowest-scoring team is eliminated and its roster returns to the player pool, which the company says drives an average session time of 22 minutes on the platform [Business Insider, Jul 2025].
On infrastructure, ZoomInfo lists the marketing and operational stack as including Cloudflare for site optimization, DoubleClick and Bing Ads on the acquisition side, and Zendesk for customer support [Crunchbase].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product features confirmed by Business Insider and CasinoBeats; tech stack inferred from a single third-party data provider.
Market Research and Opportunity
Fantasy sports and adjacent betting are entering a phase where audience habits, content distribution, and regulated gameplay are converging into single-app experiences. The US fantasy sports and sports betting markets have grown rapidly since the 2018 Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. NCAA. While Fantasy Life has not published a third-party TAM, the operating context is clear: DFS-style and pick'em products from Underdog Fantasy and similar operators have scaled into significant nine-figure revenue businesses, and reporters in 2025 have framed the consumer surface as a battle between content brands, league operators, and sportsbooks for fan attention [Betting Startups News, Jul 2025] [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025].
Demand drivers are straightforward. Fantasy participation in the US remains anchored by the NFL season, where Berry has the strongest brand recognition; the audience expects mobile-first tools bundled with content; and the rise of pick'em and short-form game formats has demonstrated that fantasy players will engage daily when product mechanics encourage it [Business Insider, Jul 2025]. Guillotine Leagues' 22 minute reported session time is the company's primary evidence point for that thesis [Business Insider, Jul 2025].
The regulatory backdrop is the most important macro variable. Pick'em DFS products from competitors have faced state-by-state challenges, and any move by Fantasy Life into paid contest mechanics will sit inside that same regulatory lens. The company's current positioning, free content plus season-long league tools plus a planned premium subscription, is largely outside that perimeter, which reduces near-term legal risk.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Guillotine Leagues avg. session time | 22 minutes |
| Fantasy Life seed round | $7M |
| Founding year | 2020 |
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Engagement metric from a single source (Business Insider); no third-party TAM cited.
The Competitive Field
Fantasy Life is positioned as a content-led, season-long-friendly alternative to the pick'em and DFS-first apps that dominate the venture-funded fantasy category.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding |
|---|---|---|
| Fantasy Life | Content-to-platform, season-long tools plus Guillotine knockout format | Seed, ~$7M |
| Underdog Fantasy | Pick'em and best-ball DFS operator | Late stage |
| Sleeper | Social fantasy league app with picks product | Late stage |
| Boom Fantasy | DFS and pick'em operator | Earlier stage |
The segment-by-segment map breaks into three groups. Incumbent DFS and pick'em operators (Underdog, PrizePicks-style products, Boom) compete on gameplay mechanics, prize pool scale, and paid acquisition. League-platform challengers (Sleeper) compete on social UX. Content brands (Fantasy Life, FantasyPros) compete on editorial trust, SEO, and email distribution. Fantasy Life's pivot is an attempt to occupy two of those three lanes at once.
The defensible edge today is distribution. Berry's audience is large, loyal, and reachable for free through the existing newsletter and app, a capital advantage versus competitors paying performance-marketing rates to acquire users during a compressed preseason window [Business Insider, Jul 2025]. The Guillotine acquisition adds a differentiated game format not directly replicated by major DFS operators [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025].
The most exposed flank is gameplay depth versus Underdog and the pick'em category. Those operators have spent years iterating on contest design, payments, and responsible-gaming infrastructure. If the company pushes into paid contest mechanics, it will enter a lane where competitors have multi-year head starts.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive landscape based on public reporting and market positioning.
Opportunity
If execution lands, Fantasy Life has a path to becoming the default season-long fantasy companion app for the NFL audience. The largest plausible outcome is that Fantasy Life becomes the consumer brand that bundles fantasy content, league tools, and lightweight gameplay into one app for the tens of millions of Americans who play season-long NFL fantasy each year. The company starts with three assets: a recognizable on-air personality, an existing free distribution channel, and a differentiated game format in Guillotine Leagues with reported 22 minute average sessions [Business Insider, Jul 2025] [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025]. The investor syndicate, anchored by LRMR Ventures and SC Holdings and supplemented by sports and media operators including David Blitzer, Jeff Shell, Larry Fitzgerald, Chad Hurley, and LeBron James, is consistent with a company being built for distribution partnerships [Crunchbase, Jul 2025].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Scenarios anchored to disclosed product roadmap and round details.
Sources
- [Crunchbase] Fantasy Life - Crunchbase Company Profile and Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fantasy-life
- [Business Insider, Jul 2025] An NBC Sports analyst just raised $7M for his fantasy sports startup. Read the pitch deck that helped him do it. | https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-sports-analyst-matthew-berry-fantasy-life-raises-millions-2025-7
- [Betting Startups News, Jul 2025] This week: Fantasy Life raises $7M to launch fantasy sports product | https://news.bettingstartups.com/p/this-week-fantasy-life-raises-7m-to-launch-fantasy-sports-product-f5e1
- [ZoomInfo] Fantasy Life - Overview, News and Similar companies | https://www.zoominfo.com/c/fantasy-life/479613718
- [World Casino Directory] Fantasy Life Raises $7M to Expand with FantasyHQ and Guillotine Leagues | https://news.worldcasinodirectory.com/fantasy-sports-startup-secures-7-million-dollars-to-fuel-expansion-118937
- [PitchBook] Fantasy Life 2025 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding and Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/519854-95
- [Crunchbase, Jul 2025] Fantasy Life - News and Analysis | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fl-newsletter/news_and_analysis
- [Sports Business Journal, Jul 2025] Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life raises $7M, launches FantasyHQ | https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/07/07/matthew-berrys-fantasy-life-raises-7m-launches-fantasyhq/
- [LinkedIn] Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life | https://www.linkedin.com/company/fantasy-life-media
- [LinkedIn] Fantasy Life | https://www.linkedin.com/company/fantasylifeapp
- [CasinoBeats, Jul 2025] Fantasy Life unveils Fantasy HQ following $7M seed raise | https://news.bettingstartups.com/p/this-week-fantasy-life-raises-7m-to-launch-fantasy-sports-product-f5e1
- [LinkedIn] Matthew Swing - Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattswing/
- [LinkedIn] Dan Kaufman - Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life | https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-kaufman-615128/
Articles about Fantasy Life
- Fantasy Life Is Betting Matthew Berry Can Hold a Fantasy Manager for 22 Minutes a Session — With $7M in seed funding and the Guillotine Leagues acquisition, the NBC Sports analyst is turning his audience into a product.