Dream11 parent forays into wealth tech after gaming ban, pilots new FD and gold investment app

Dream Sports CEO Harsh Jain

Dream Sports is piloting a personal money management app called Dream Money, which allows people to invest in gold and fixed deposits, as well as track their spending, Moneycontrol has learnt.

The move is expected to help the company diversify its offerings, after it halted all paid contests on its flagship fantasy sports platform Dream11 and shifted entirely to free-to-play online social games to comply with India’s new online gaming law.

The law. which received Presidential assent on Friday, prohibits online money games, which are games where a user makes a deposit, directly or indirectly, with the expectation of earning winnings on that deposit.

Dream Money enables people to buy gold or set up a SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) on a daily or monthly basis, starting from Rs 10. It has partnered with digital gold trading platform Augmont for this purpose. Moneycontrol has reviewed the app and its features.

The app also offers fixed deposit investments from Rs 1,000, requiring no bank account, with funds accessible for withdrawal at any time.

Moneycontrol observed that Dream Money was providing fixed deposits from small finance banks such as Suryoday Small Finance Bank, Shivalik Small Finance Bank, Slice Small Finance Bank, and non-banking finance companies such as Shriram Finance. The app has partnered with fintech startup Upswing, which provides an open finance-as-a-service platform, for this feature.

A screenshot of Dream Money, a personal money management app from Dream Sports

In addition, Dream Money has partnered with SEBI-registered AI investment advisor Sigfyn to help users track their spending, income, and investments in one place, by linking bank accounts and assets such as mutual funds, stocks, and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

The app will also provide daily and monthly financial insights, smart recommendations based on users’ cash flow, and analysis of their assets and trends. Dream Sports declined to comment.

The Mumbai-based firm has previously experimented with fintech offerings, launching the UPI payments app DreamX in March 2023 in partnership with Pine Labs, which holds a Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) license.

However, the app was subsequently shut down after a June 2023 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directive to halt UPI services offered under co-branded arrangements.

Apart from Dream11, Dream Sports also houses brands such as sports content and commerce platform FanCode, sports experiences platform DreamSetGo, mobile game development unit Dream Game Studios, and its philanthropic arm Dream Sports Foundation.

Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream Sports was last valued at $8 billion when it received $840 million by way of funding from a clutch of funds led by Falcon Edge, DST Global, D1 Capital, Redbird Capital, Tiger Global, TPG and Footpath Ventures in November 2021.

For the financial year FY23, Dream Sports saw its revenue from operations jump 66 percent to Rs 6,384.49 crore, up from Rs 3,841 crore in FY22. Dream11 accounts for the majority of the company's revenues.

Other money management and expense tracker apps in India include Fi.Money, Jupiter Money, and Moneyview. Startups like Jar also allows users to start gold SIPs on their platforms.