Sports and Entertainment capital raises and investors in the U.S. - june 1st to 30th, 2026. Several interesting transactions closed in the Sports and Entertainment sector over the past month. If you would like more info or would like to discuss the capital raising market for your company, please contact me. PE Growth/Expansion * Aurora Theatre Company, professional theatre company that provides intimate live performance experiences, received $12 million of development capital from Redline Capital Management. Merger/Acquisition * MagicSpace Entertainment, stage show production services for entertainment purposes, was acquired by Icon Concerts. * Pocketpod, online podcast platform that generates artificial intelligence-generated broadcasts for customers, was acquired by Factory. Later Stage VC * Alt Sports Data, sports betting data and market modeling platform that supports wagering markets for alternative and emerging sports, raised $5.48 million of venture funding, putting the company's pre-money valuation at $23.52 million. Early Stage VC * EvoSports, sports live-streaming platform that connects athletes with fans, raised venture funding from Addin Ventures. * Sekai, AI-powered content platform for anime, gaming, and fan fiction lovers, raised $20 million through a combination of Series A and Series A-1 venture funding in a deal led by Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures, putting the company's pre-money valuation at $124 million. * Onyx Odds, free-to-play sports prediction gaming platform that allows users to bet on sports through promotional games and sweepstakes prizes, raised $20 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Kraken, putting the company's pre-money valuation at $200 million. Seed Round * Golden Infinity, cinematic micro-dramas and short stories for entertainment, raised pre-seed funding from Yar Ventures. #castleplacement #capitalraising #privateequity #venturecapital #investment #sports #entertainment Rashidah billups. Managing director. Please contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss your capital raise: (C)(917) 475-6679 Send Castle Placement, LLC a message: Sources: Information on this page was derived from a variety of sources including Bloomberg, Company Websites, Crunchbase, PitchBook and other news outlets. Castle Placement(R) does not warrant or guarantee this information, nor makes any representations as to the accuracy of the information. For more Risks, see CPGO Risks and Disclaimers.

Onyx Odds announces Series A valuing company at $220M. Investment Round Totaling $20M Comes Less Than a Year after Onyx Odds Comes out of Beta NEW YORK - Onyx Odds, the fastest-growing social sports prediction platform, announced today its Series A funding round totaling $20M, led by Payward, the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader and Bitnomial. The round values Onyx Odds at $220 million... June 24, 2026 at 10:22 a.m. Investment Round Totaling $20M Comes Less Than a Year after Onyx Odds Comes out of Beta NEW YORK - Onyx Odds, the fastest-growing social sports prediction platform, announced today its Series A funding round totaling $20M, led by Payward, the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader and Bitnomial. The round values Onyx Odds at $220 million less than one year after coming out of beta. Onyx Odds enables users to engage with sports outcomes through exchange-traded instruments, offering a new, market-driven way to participate in sports markets. Founded in 2025, the company has quickly attracted a dedicated and growing community of users, underscoring its momentum across the broader prediction and data marketplace. As part of the investment, Onyx Odds will integrate with Payward Services, the B2B infrastructure platform behind Kraken and Payward's wider product suite, to power its prediction markets offering on Payward's fully licensed US derivatives stack and embed crypto trading inside the Onyx app. The single integration gives Onyx the foundation to extend its lead in prediction markets without spending years assembling vendors, licenses and operational capabilities itself. The raise follows a period of strong momentum for Onyx Odds, driven by user engagement and retention. With nearly a million users, industry-leading retention has made Onyx one of the largest prediction platforms within its first year, on less than $8M in venture funding prior to this round. "This investment marks a major milestone for Onyx Odds and validates the strength of both our platform and our vision," said Leul Dadi, founder and CEO of Onyx Odds. "Payward brings a deep expertise and allows us to scale more efficiently while continuing to deliver a best-in-class experience for our users." For Payward, the investment marks a significant step into prediction markets and reinforces its position as a multi-asset infrastructure platform, freeing partners to focus on product and user experience instead of stitching together a patchwork of vendors, licenses and capabilities. "Prediction markets are one of the fastest-growing emerging categories in financial services," said Mark Greenberg, Head of Payward Services. "Payward is the only US platform that brings a CFTC-registered FCM, a CFTC-designated DCM and a global crypto exchange under one roof, and makes the full stack available through Payward Services. Onyx is the kind of operator that knows what to do with that foundation, and we're investing to help them scale it." ABOUT ONYX ODDS: Onyx Odds is a leading social sports prediction platform. The company was founded in 2025 and is headquartered in New York City. ABOUT PAYWARD: Payward Services is the B2B infrastructure platform built on 15 years of operating Kraken, one of the world's largest crypto platforms. Through a single integration, partners can access crypto and tokenized equity trading, fiat and stablecoin payments, yield, lending, prediction markets and derivatives. Fintechs, banks, brokerages, payment providers, exchanges, consumer tech platforms and asset managers can use Payward Services to offer digital assets to their clients without building the stack themselves. Liquidity, custody, payments, compliance, risk and settlement are integrated by design, replacing fragmented multi-vendor stacks with a single regulated foundation. Partners build on the same infrastructure that powers Payward's family of products, deployed as modular services they can scale alongside their own.