With a new name, Alloy Sports competes for a shot at $180,000 in seed funding

Sports wagering analytics startup Fanalysts has officially rebranded as Alloy Sports, the name under which it now competes in a prestigious pitch competition that counts Grubhub and Braintree/Venmo among its victors.

Alloy Sports is one of 12 finalists in the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge, which boasts an award pool of over $1 million. Founders Spencer and Bradley Kronthal see this contest, whose Rattan L. Khosa First-Place Prize is worth $180,000, as a chance to put Alloy Sports on the map and get in front of the investors that seeded present-day juggernauts in the food delivery and currency transaction ecosystems.

“Just to be in the finals, to have that exposure is huge going forward,” Bradley, the company’s COO, told Technical.ly. “We’ve seen teams in the past really break out and expand their companies even if they didn’t win.”

Alloy Sports incorporated last year during the height of the pandemic. Starting with an Excel spreadsheet and four team members, Alloy Sports has grown over time into a nine-person team. As sports enthusiasts themselves, the founders uncovered a niche for those interested in data and sports. That focus morphed into helping sports data nerds create their own personal betting algorithms using team attributes and historical data.

A startup can only grow so much in a silo. At some point, companies that want a widespread reach must find the network of investors and vendors that allow them to scale. The Kronthal brothers admitted that the circumstances of the pandemic have made it hard to break into the Baltimore tech ecosystem and build a sense of community to find that network.

“Getting in front of people and networking in person, where there’s actually a difference between talking with someone in person on the West Coast versus someone in Baltimore, where you actually might be a ten-minute drive away but you’re still over a computer — getting that community is something that has been lacking over the last couple years, just given the environment, and it’s something we’re looking forward to getting back to,” Spencer, the company’s CEO, said.

He’s currently in Chicago for the New Venture Challenge, with the finals taking place on Thursday. If all goes well, Alloy Sports could be the next Grubhub or at the very least, be on the road to building the network of investors that makes growing into a company like Grubhub possible.