Better Opinions, a Y-Combinator backed company, has raised over $1 million in a pre-seed round from Y Combinator, Java Capital, Soma Capital, and angels including UpGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar, GoTo Financials (Gojek-Tokopedia) head of product and engineering Sudhanshu Raheja, Gojek SVP Pratyush Prasanna, Namshi and the Ranadive Family Chief Commercial Officer Chinmaya Sharma, Sacramento Kings co-owners.
Better Opinions is an event trading platform that allows users to trade their opinions on events in various categories such as cricket, football, finance and entertainment, and allows users to trade on events while matching them with a person with a complimentary trade. It is the stock market exchange of opinions. With events trading emerging as a whole new asset class across the globe, Better Opinions is targeting one crore monthly GMV in Q2 and one million users in Q4.
Better Opinions co-founder and CEO Samay Jain explained that the app is also targeted at those individuals who may not be financially literate. “Our aim is to make the app inclusive for all. The stock market unfortunately can be very technical and opaque and therefore isn’t always accessible for all. However, when we start allowing trading in categories such as cricket, politics and entertainment, not only do we make trading more relatable, but we also help improve their financial literacy. In the process, they also start experiencing the excitement of trading.”
The funds raised will be used to build and expand the product and tech team, grow the existing user base and educate the users about events trading. Better Opinions is an app where events are created in the form of binary yes/no questions to make trading more relatable, accessible and widespread.
Java Capital co-founder and partner Vinod Shankar said, “We at Java Capital are very excited to invest in Better Opinions and back Samay and Soumyajit, who have shown maturity and purpose in building Better Opinions, and scaling it at a fast pace. As a VC, I make decisions on companies to invest/trade, a reflection of our opinion, knowledge and information at a point in time. We are in a privileged position as a VC to make such decisions as part of our jobs. What if you and anyone else want to trade on their opinions? Better Opinions – is a product for everyone who has an opinion on any world event to trade and take a position on the same.”
Founded in 2021, Better Opinions launched its Real Money Gaming App (“RMG App”) in December last year and within a month of its launch has seen 150K sign ups with a week on week (WoW) growth of 30per cent. The launch comes after the Beta version of the Better Opinions App, played with virtual money.
Better Opinions has been shortlisted for W22 batch of Y Combinator. The team consists of founders, Samay Jain and Soumyajit Das, who are former employees of Gojek. The team also consists of graduates from IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and NALSAR, among others.
Prediction markets sit at the intersection of three of the strongest trends that are being observed today: a propensity to speculate, real money gaming, and social. Prediction market allows you to trade on everyday topics. RMG business is growing at a CAGR of 23 per cent YOY.