Success story of Dream 11 – Biggest Game Changer In Indian Fantasy Sports Industry

As the younger generation of this digital era likes to spend more and more time on their smartphones and with the extension of social media platforms, fantasy sports are no longer a little-known concept. In fact, fantasy gaming is what most ardent fans of sports feel crazy about. Motivated with the growing popularity of this sector across the world, two aspiring entrepreneurs and diehard fans of sports, Harsh Jain and Bhavith Sheth launched Dream 11 with an aim to make fantasy sports a huge success in India.

However, Dream 11’s journey of becoming India’s was not a cakewalk. The company had gone through many ups and down before achieving a huge customer-base of 140 million users.

In this blog, we will talk about the inspiring startup story of Dream 11 and how did its founders, Harsh and Bhavith, start off.

About Dream 11

Founded in 2008, Dream 11 is an Indian fantasy sports platform which allow its users to make their imaginary teams and earn money based on the actual performance of the selected players. The users can earn the cash reward points on every good move of the players. Dream 11 offers its customers to play fantasy sports in the categories like cricket, football, hockey, kabaddi and basketball.

How did it begin?

It all started in 2008, when Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, who both are an ardent fans of English football fantasy league games, founded a company with the belief that sports fantasy leagues would become a profitable service opportunity. Indian Premier League (IPL), the biggest cricketing carnival in the country, was the main catalyst for fantasy sports industry to emerge. Considering the huge popularity of cricket in India, Harsh thought that it would be a great market to tap in for a gaming platform.

For his customer base at the initial stage, Harsh had many friends and acquaintances who used to make casual predictions during any game and those predictions eventually turned out to be true. So, he suggested his friends to make money out of it.

In 2012, the company finally launched its first freemium services, and from there, Dream 11’s real journey of success began. Within two years after the launch of freemium services, the gaming platform reported 1 million registered users, which later grew to 2 million in 2016 and eventually increased to 45 million in 2018.

Founders & Team

Dream11 was founded by two young and aspiring entrepreneurs and ardent sports fans, Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth. Harish was born in 1986 in Mumbai. He did his graduation from University of Pennsylvania. Before starting Dream 11, Harsh founded a social media agency, Red Digital which was later acquired by Gozoop in 2013.

Harsh’s main agenda behind founding Dream 11 was to make fantasy sport a part of every sports fan’s life.

Growth in the market

Currently, Dream 11’s total valuation is $8 billion after the company received the funding of worth $840 million in November 2021. Not only this, Dream 11 is considered to be the highest valued startup in the online and fantasy gaming industry in India.

The most prominent investors in the company are Steadview Capital, Tencent Holdings, and Kalaari Capital.

Dream 11 came into the limelight when it signed the four-year exclusive sponsorship deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for IPL in 2019.

Reason behind the success of Dream 11

Success never comes without hardships. To become the number one gaming platform in the country, Dream 11 had to face many hurdles and challenges during its journey but, at the end, it was all worth it.

According to Harsh Jain, the main reason behind the success of his company lies in the execution of his idea rather than the idea itself. One can even say that very few startups in India which were born from an authentic idea. Most of them have been modified and altered along the way.

Another thing which contributed towards the success of Dream 11 was the lack of competitors. Since Harsh’s idea was unique and the sports enthusiasts also found it interesting, the platform reached the top in no time.