Topdog Raises $2.5 Million Seed Financing to Scale Real Time Multiplayer Gaming

Funding From Boston Seed Capital, The Raine Group, and Bullpen Capital Brings Topdog's Total Capital Raised to $4.1 Million

NEW YORK, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Topdog, a real money skill-gaming company featuring real time multiplayer games for sports fans and gamers, announced it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding to accelerate growth of its app and expand its portfolio of multiplayer sports, card, and strategy games.

The round, led by Boston Seed Capital, includes participation from The Raine Group, Bullpen Capital, Versus Ventures, Spoondrift Capital, and Permit Ventures. Topdog previously raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, bringing the company's total funding to $4.1 million.

The company is backed by several prominent gaming entrepreneurs and industry leaders, including FanDuel co-founder Nigel Eccles, Revenant VC Founder Ryan Moore, and gaming industry consultant Dustin Gouker, among others. Topdog has also assembled early DraftKings and FanDuel investors including Boston Seed, The Raine Group, and Bullpen Capital, bringing together influential leaders in modern sports betting behind the company's vision for real time multiplayer gaming.

Topdog will use the new funding to accelerate user acquisition and introduce more real time multiplayer games built around sports.

"Sports fans spend countless hours thinking about lineups, matchups, strategy, and what is going to happen next, yet most gaming products only give them something to do for a short time period, while a game is actually being played," said Aman Agarwal, co-founder of Topdog. "We see a much bigger opportunity here. Topdog is building real time multiplayer sports skill games that let fans compete directly against each other and stay engaged with the sports they love even during off-peak hours. We believe real-time multiplayer can redefine what sports gaming looks like."

Instead of competing against a house or playing an asynchronous game based largely on individual scores, Topdog games are designed around live interaction, strategy, and adaptation to an opponent. The approach is central to Topdog's broader thesis that the next generation of real money skill gaming will become increasingly multiplayer and real time.

Topdog has developed a portfolio of strategy based games, including Basketball Hustle, a multiplayer basketball game in which players draft teams and make strategic decisions throughout a match, along with 21 Hustle, Tilt, Pinfall and other titles. The company is continuing to build sports games designed to give fans new ways to compete outside the traditional windows of live sporting events.

"Topdog is attacking an arena of gaming that has enormous potential but has historically been difficult to execute," said Peter Blacklow, Managing Director at Boston Seed Capital. "Aman, Jatin and the team have built technology that makes real time multiplayer gaming scalable while pairing it with games that are intuitive, competitive and designed specifically for real-money audiences. In doing so, they have cracked several codes that we were unable to when I was leading WorldWinner's skill games business. We believe they have an opportunity to build an important new category."

Topdog's technology was built to address one of the longstanding challenges of multiplayer gaming: ensuring that players can consistently find well matched opponents. Its infrastructure supports synchronous gameplay, player matchmaking, liquidity, payments, fraud detection, and live operations.

Unlike many traditional skill-games, in which players compete separately and compare scores afterward, Topdog's titles are turn-by-turn experiences in which participants play simultaneously and adjust their decisions based on their opponents. That structure is designed to create faster, more interactive games while reducing the opportunity for a single dominant strategy or automated play to determine outcomes.

"Consumers already expect multiplayer competition everywhere else in gaming," Agarwal added. "Real money skill-gaming should be no different. We want Topdog to become the place where sports fans and gamers can compete against each other, in real time, whenever they want to play."

ABOUT TOPDOG
Topdog is a real-money skill-gaming company that builds and operates strategy-driven multiplayer games. Its games allow players to compete against real opponents in real time. Topdog has built its own end-to-end technology stack that includes matchmaking, player liquidity, payments, fraud detection, and live operations, enabling the company to quickly launch and scale multiplayer gaming experiences.

Topdog was founded by Aman Agarwal and Jatin Narang, who have more than a decade of combined experience in skill gaming. For more information, visit topdog.games.

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SOURCE Topdog