Aaron Rodgers Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign With Sports Database OSDB

Equity crowdfunding is the ugly duckling of the startup investing world. For a while, the industry held a stigma that only the worst companies raised through equity crowdfunding because it was the 'companies that couldn't raise from venture capital.' But that is quickly changing, with many of the leading companies in the startups market raising through equity crowdfunding. One of the most notable is Substack, who previously raised $86 million from venture capital, then launched a Wefunder raise and maxed out almost instantly. But another example might have just launched on StartEngine.

The 'Online Sports Database' or OSDB is a startup looking to raise as much as $1.23 million through equity crowdfunding with a star-studded roster. As the name implies, the startup is a media company looking to become the go-to 'database' for all things sports. Much like the 'Internet Movie Database' or IMBD looks to catalog millions of movies, shows and actors, OSDB looks to become the go-to place for all things sports and players. Ryan Rottman, an actor and CEO of OSBD, conducted an interview with Bloomberg saying "We want to aggregate all the sites and consolidate them and make a one-stop shop for all things sports."

But what makes the startup particularly interesting is the startup boasts Aaron Rodgers as the co-founder and board member. Their StartEngine page notes the millionaire and famous quarterback only contributes roughly 2-3 hours per week to OSDB. Rodgers is no stranger to the startups market, however. Rodgers founded RX3 Growth Partners alongside Nate Raabe and Byron Roth. The venture capital studio boasts 18 startups in its portfolio, including Manscaped, Super Coffee, Hydrow, Full Swing, Therabody, Any Money, and more. Of those 18, the fund previously invested in Hims, Chemical Guys, Prive Revaux, and Nom Nom, all of which have either gone public or gotten acquired. Due to this success, the fund raised $150 million in May despite the current bleak venture capital market.

OSDB Terms & Financials

OSDB raised $4 million prior to this equity crowdfunding round. The startup is currently raising at a valuation of $25 million and has not yet started generating revenue. The offering circular notes a number of different potential methods for generating revenue, however. Currently, the company sells sports betting picks and has a number of subscriptions available to the tune of as much as $2000 per year for the all-sports package.

Currently, the startup has been burning roughly $1.5 million per year for the past two fiscal years, with $572,603 cash on hand. This means the startup has roughly three months of runway should the company fail to raise more funding. If the round maxes out, the startup will have approximately 14 months of runway.

While the company does have $1.7 million in long-term debt, this is from a SAFE issued from their seed round. The SAFE, which raised $1.7 million, converts at a valuation of $7 million, meaning the current effective post-money valuation is likely closer to a $32 million valuation.

Recent Acquisitions

There are hundreds of media companies constantly getting acquired. Advertising is approaching a trillion-dollar industry, and maintaining an engaged audience means easy revenue for advertisers. Brands are always looking for new audiences, so acquiring a company with someone's target audience could mean doing just that. Other expansion options, such as data licensing and subscriptions allow for safe and consistent revenue as well. Most notably, IMBD was acquired in 1998 by Amazon for $55 million for the purpose of selling movies and tv shows on Amazon. Adjusted for inflation IMBD was acquired for roughly $100 million in 2023.

This wasn't the last media company Amazon acquired, however. In 2013, Amazon acquired The Washington Post for $250 million. According to an article by The Washington Post, the struggling news company had $959 million in revenue and $4.7 million in net income the same year it was acquired. This means the company was acquired for only .25x the company's revenue but 204x net income.

Conversely, Intuit acquired Credit Karma in 2020 for $8.1 billion in cash and stock. The company had $865 million in revenue in 2021 and an estimated $560 million in revenue in 2020. Meaning the company was acquired for 14x the previous years revenue.

Most comparable, however, is ESPN. The company has been acquired several times over the past decade but is currently valued at over $50 billion on roughly $6.6 billion in revenue, giving them a multiple of roughly 7.57x revenue. This means OSDB would need to generate roughly $4.2 million in revenue for investors to break even from their current point.

OSDB Growth

The primary metric here is site visitors, audience size, momentum and growth. Site growth isn't particularly difficult as ranking for top keywords can easily generate thousands of site visitors. As a website's domain authority begins to grow, the growth quickly becomes exponential as ranking for top search keywords becomes quicker and faster.

The OSDB StartEngine page says they have roughly 1.2 million users and 150,000 monthly site visitors. There is conflicting data depending on the source, but none of the data is too far off. For example, SimilarWeb notes roughly 112,000 monthly visitors, with a massive ramp-up in recent months.

While AHREFS credits them with substantially more. AHREFS also highlights the recent exponential growth on the platform. Despite very little traction from 2018 until 2022, the company has over tripled its traffic value and grew its potential traffic by 5x.

The $28,000 represents the value of their traffic if someone were to pay to drive that same amount of traffic currently. The company has also seen a large spike in ranking keywords, likely contributing to its continued spike in traction.