Mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace ZenSports has completed a busy 12 months since the launch of its new betting app, with significant funding now in place to help generate increased marketing activity. 

From the app’s March 2019 launch, the startup had generated $675,000 of funding by October as part of a broader $1m-plus seed round. Further interest from additional angel investors in December, allied to a new round of funding has helped the firm close an additional $770,000 across multiple investors.

Explaining how the new funding round played out, Co-Founder and CEO Mark Thomas said: “After officially closing our $1m-plus seed round in October 2019, we felt more than comfortable that we had enough funding to execute on our growth strategy for 2020. However, we had numerous angel investors who approached us about putting more money into our company. 

“We decided to offer a time-boxed raise without a target amount for these investors who approached us and shared our vision of how decentralized, peer-to-peer sports betting using cryptocurrencies was the future. We were fortunate to have a lot of choices in the investors we decided to ultimately bring on board, and we’re thrilled to be working with them as we continue to grow and scale ZenSports.”

Thomas added that new funding will be heavily invested into paid customer acquisition channels. “Up to this point, we haven’t spent any money on paid marketing to acquire new customers,” he said. “Instead, we’ve focused on optimizing the post-customer acquisition and retention funnel through constant product iteration and via our SPORTS Rewards Program. 

“We’ve got incredibly loyal customers who are very active on a daily basis in placing bets in our app. It’s now time to get very aggressive in growing our overall customer base via paid marketing.”

To help accomplish this, the company has hired experienced marketer Mark Saldana as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Saldana brings a wealth of digital marketing experience to technology and consumer brands and will be an integral part of the company’s revenue and growth plans.