Topdog, a New York-based company that hosts real-money skill games across 45 states, said Monday it closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Boston Seed Capital. The financing attracted a cluster of gambling industry veterans, including FanDuel co-founder Nigel Eccles and early DraftKings investor Ryan Moore, alongside participation from The Raine Group, Bullpen Capital, Versus Ventures, Spoondrift Capital and Permit Ventures.
The round brings the startup's total disclosed funding to $4.1 million. Topdog previously raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in September 2024.
What sets Topdog apart in a crowded skill-gaming market is its emphasis on speed and simultaneity. Players square off in head-to-head matches lasting roughly 60 seconds—basketball, blackjack variants, bowling, pinball—competing in real time rather than submitting scores for asynchronous comparison. Co-founder Aman Agarwal said users average about 25 games daily, a usage pattern that suggests either uncommonly sticky engagement or a small but intensely active player base. The company claims it has paid out more than $10 million to winners, processing withdrawals "in seconds" through integrations with Finix and Stripe.
Currently available only on iOS, Topdog operates in what the company characterizes as a skill-based gaming framework that exists outside traditional casino and sports-betting regulations in most jurisdictions, though the landscape shifts unpredictably. Pennsylvania's supreme court recently reclassified certain retail skill-game machines as slot machines, a decision that forced operators to yank physical terminals from gas stations and bars. According to the company, Topdog verifies player location at the time of play and sets age floors at 18 in most states, bumping to 21 where local law demands it.
The investor lineup carries weight in gambling circles. Boston Seed Capital managing director Peter Blacklow ran WorldWinner's skill-gaming division before its acquisition by Liberty Media, then Sony. Moore, who started Revenant VC after his DraftKings bet paid off handsomely, joined alongside Eccles, architect of FanDuel's rise to dominance before its $4.2 billion sale to Paddy Power Betfair in 2018. Industry consultant Dustin Gouker also participated.
Their involvement signals a bet that real-time competition holds more appeal than the score-submission tournaments that dominate platforms like Skillz and Papaya Gaming's Pocket7Games. But live matchmaking introduces technical complexity those incumbents avoid: players must be online simultaneously, requiring sufficient user density to pair opponents without frustrating wait times.
Topdog's founding team emerged from the skill-gaming ecosystem itself. Agarwal lists three patents filed in game mechanics on the company's site, though patent filings alone don't guarantee novel technology. Co-founder Jatin Narang claims he previously scaled a skill-gaming business to $72 million in revenue, though that figure hasn't been independently verified. CTO Avinash Srivastava describes himself as a founding engineer at "the world's largest casual skill-gaming company," a phrase vague enough to encompass several candidates. The startup operates as Toast Studios, Inc., a Delaware corporation with between 11 and 50 employees according to LinkedIn.
The company rebranded from Carnival to Topdog in August, based on App Store version history. It has partnered with GamerSaloon, Ember Fund and Sparket, though details on those integrations remain thin.
Topdog plans to direct the new capital toward user acquisition and expanding its game library, adding sports, card and strategy titles. "Topdog is building real time multiplayer sports skill games that let fans compete directly against each other," Agarwal said in a statement. Blacklow, the Boston Seed Capital partner, added that the founding team "built technology that makes real time multiplayer gaming scalable."
Whether that technology proves defensible, or whether the live-match format resonates beyond early adopters, remains to be seen. The skill-gaming sector has produced winners—Skillz went public via SPAC in 2020—but also plenty of startups that burned through venture capital chasing engagement that never materialized. Topdog's 60-second match structure and iOS-only distribution suggest a company still testing its way toward product-market fit, searching for the formula that turns quick sessions into lasting habit.
