Dream Sports, the parent company of Dream11, is all set to raise around $400 million in a funding round that is likely to see participation from new and old investors, says an Entrackr report. This funding round will help shoot the company’s valuation from $5 billion to $8.5 billion.

While requesting anonymity, one of the sources said, “Dream11 has been in conversation with several new and existing backers to raise $400-600 million in a new round which is likely to be a pre-IPO one. The talks have moved beyond the preliminary stage and may materialize in the next few weeks.” 

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If successfully accomplished, it will go down as one of the largest investments in India’s fantasy sports ecosystem. With this, Dream11 will be India’s fourth most valued Unicorn after Byju’s, Paytm, and Oyo. 

In March, Dream Sports had raised a capital of $400 million from investors such as TCV, D1 Capital Partners, and Falcon Edge before the IPL.

As per the Times of India, “this was an entirely secondary round where some of the company’s early investors such as Multiples Alternate Asset Management and Kalaari Capital sold a part of their stake while China’s Tencent continued to hold on to its stake in the company.”

“The potential round is likely to have a secondary component as Dream11 gets ready for a public listing in the US next year,” said a person who wished not to be named. 

An ET report further revealed that the company was eyeing to raise over $1.5 billion from public listing through a special purpose acquisition company.

In 2020, after raising $225 million from a fundraiser, the company had raised Jain’s salary by 3.3x, thus making him the highest-paid startup CEO in India. 

Recently, Dream Sports also launched Dream Capital, a $250 million corporate venture capital fund to further its investments in sports, online gaming, and fitness-tech startups. The company has also made an investment in Elevar, a D2C sports brand.