Fantasy sports developer RotoHog bags $2M

Online fantasy sports game developer RotoHog announced that it’s brought in $2 million in a second round of capital. It plans to use the funds to expand its partnerships with brand sponsors and look at opportunities overseas.

Instead of offering basic fantasy sports competition, RotoHog builds custom sports games — including many for particular brands. In the past, it has developed branded products for NBA.com, Turner, LG Electronics, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour and GoDaddy.com, reports paidContent. It also creates games to run on social networks — like its recent Pro Football Playoff Challenge on Facebook. Its games take a number of forms, ranging from regular league play to championship challenges to stock market models (in which athletes’ values rise and fall based on their performances). You can see past coverage on how RotoHog departs from standard fantasy sports protocol here.

In addition to hosting and building fantasy sports games, RotoHog has turned its web site into a hub for related content, including polls (the hilarious, Vote on the Fate of Tiger’s Apple, for example), real-world sports headlines, message forums for users, blogs, game schedules and even a shop for fans to buy team apparel.

All of this helps to distinguish RotoHog from its primary competitors Fantasy Sports Ventures, athletic stock markets OneSeason and ProTrade, and the larger league systems operated by Sportsline and ESPN.

The recent funding round was led by Mission Ventures and DFJ Dragon. It raised a $6 million first round in 2007 from StubHub co-founder Jeff Fluhr, SCP Worldwide and Allen & Co. And before that, it landed $1.8 million in seed money from the same sources. RotoHog’s connection with DFJ Dragon may help increase its market penetration in China, where the firm is located.

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