How Lucra raised $20M as an eSports play when every VC only wants AI

**Julie Bort** (0:00)
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's podcast about the business of startups. I'm Julie Bort, and for Rebecca Balaan, and this is the episode where we talk to experts and explore tech trends. You've probably noticed that being an AI startup is everything these days. So when we came across a company that raised $20 million from Cathie Wood's ARK Invest venture fund, and isn't an AI startup, we had to hear the story. Lucra Sports turns friendly competition between people into loyalty programs for brands, sometimes for cash prizes. Today we're talking to Lucra's founder and CEO, Dylan Robbins, about what it took to land that check, especially from an investor who had already been burned by a similar company.
Dylan, welcome to the show.

**Dylan Robbins** (0:48)
Hey, Julie, great to see you.

**Julie Bort** (0:50)
So, you've done something that no other startup has ever done before, like never. So you convinced famed investor, Cathie Wood of ARK, to lead an investment in your startup. They've never ever led a startup investment before. They called me up excited, they were so excited about you, they were so excited about your company, Lucra. On top of that, not only did you convince them, but they actually got burned really badly on an investment that they had made in another company in a similar space. So you had to overcome their fear.
All of this is for a startup that isn't AI, that isn't the thing that everybody's chasing.
I want to get into the particulars of how they grilled you and how you got through, how you even got them to consider this to begin with. But before we do that, introduce yourself a little bit and tell me a little bit about your company, Lucra.

**Dylan Robbins** (1:43)
Awesome. Thanks, Julie. Again, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to chat with you about all of this. I'm Dylan, founder and CEO of Lucra, born and raised here in New York City, which is where I live today with my wife and my son, and have been building Lucra since 2021 Before that, just 20 seconds, I started my career in investment banking, and then started my first company in the e-commerce space. My first company was actually a wine business, so very different. But I've been an entrepreneur now for almost a decade and have certainly caught the boat.

**Julie Bort** (2:08)
I've seen that. I was going to ask you about your wine business. Yeah, great.

**Dylan Robbins** (2:11)
I'm happy to talk about that. But I had a lot of fun doing that. Built that with my wife, actually, so we enjoyed doing that back in the mid-2015, 2017 time period, and then went to Stanford Business School to get my MBA, which is where we started Lucra. So Lucra was founded in 2021

**Julie Bort** (2:27)
Excellent. So what does Lucra do?

**Dylan Robbins** (2:29)
We are a white-label gamification business. So we sell software to brands where competition exists, and we digitize it. So anytime you're at the bar or at the arcade or playing golf or pickleball, like if you can play for a buck or a burger, that's where we fit and all the stuff is happening offline or on Venmo and we're digitizing it, and we're selling that software to brands.

**Julie Bort** (2:48)
Okay. So Cathie described it to me as reimagining loyalty programs. Is that how you think of this?

**Dylan Robbins** (2:55)
She says it best.

**Julie Bort** (2:55)
You're right.

**Dylan Robbins** (2:56)
Yeah. So reimagining loyalty programs, exactly.
We're basically modernizing what loyalty is. Up until today, loyalty has been points or punch cards, and you accumulate these things you don't know what to do with. Lucra is all about the immediate gratification. Hey, Julie, I'll play you for a burger. Or hey, let's play pickleball. Loser pays for the court. That's a simple thing that already happens.

**Julie Bort** (3:16)
So the users who are in these establishments can bet with each other through your platform. Exactly.

**Dylan Robbins** (3:24)
Yeah. They're often not only playing for money. Again, the loser gets the court time or the loser gets Doritos or nachos or we're playing for discounted buy one, get one free wings or a chance to go to the master's tournament.
It's more around playing for something, it's not necessarily quote, unquote, betting. It's more of a true loyalty platform.

**Julie Bort** (3:42)
Okay. So the companies themselves also can offer a prize.

**Dylan Robbins** (3:46)
Correct.

**Julie Bort** (3:47)
You know, like it's a tournament, the companies can offer a prize and then you handle all that. But then people can bet each other as well?

**Dylan Robbins** (3:52)