LatAm fantasy sports startup Draftea raises $20 million, partners with NFL

Draftea, a fantasy sports startup focusing on the Spanish-speaking Latin America region, has raised $20 million in its Series A funding round and is now expanding football fantasy in the region through partnership with the National Football League (NFL) and the NFL Player's Association.

• Draftea evolved from a stealth mode it was in January to a platform hosting Mexican fantasy football matches. The platform offers daily engagements patterned along real-world sports schedules.
• It lets one fantasy team competes against another and it is not a betting platform, unlike other esports companies. It launched 'NFL by Draftea' today, a product that enables users to draft their NFL teams for the coming session now. Draftea offers game structures like head-to-head matchups, and games with 20% win payouts for players and aims to add new contests to keep up with users' demands.
• With an increase from 34 to 70 employees, the gaming startup is doing double digits growth week-over-week and has surged in gross merchandise value. It claims players can earn thousands and millions of pesos playing fantasy football daily on its platform.
• Stepstone Group led the funding round with participation from Sequoia, Kaszek, Bullpen, Courtside Ventures, and Cristiano Ronaldo, Travis Kelce, Kevin Durant, and Jorge Mendes invested in the round as business angels.