Startup Deep Dive : FanCode — it skipped the IPL, hit 100 million users, then became Dream Sports’ backup plan

FanCode has never owned the rights to the Indian Premier League, Indian cricket’s biggest and most expensive show. Yet by May 2024 it had signed up 100 million users anyway, five years after launch, without a single marquee cricket property to its name (Forbes India, May 2024).

The platform sits inside Dream Sports, the group better known for the fantasy-sports app Dream11. In August 2025, India’s Parliament banned real-money gaming outright, and a business that had built its scale on cash contests lost most of its income overnight. FanCode, until then a modest side bet next to Dream11, was suddenly asked to help carry the group’s revenue. This is the story of how a streaming app that deliberately avoided the biggest sporting property in the country became central to its parent’s survival plan.

Quick facts

What they do

FanCode is an over-the-top sports platform, streaming live matches and selling fan merchandise to Indian sports followers who want more than the handful of properties Indian television covers well. Rather than chase cricket’s biggest fixtures, it licenses a wide spread of sport — Formula 1, MotoGP, La Liga, the Bundesliga, England’s domestic cricket, West Indies and other smaller cricket boards, and, from 2026, India’s top football league, the Indian Super League — and sells access to it match by match, tournament by tournament, or through subscriptions, mostly to a mobile-first, price-sensitive Indian audience (Wikipedia; Dream Sports Group newsroom).

The origin

Yannick Colaco and Prasana Krishnan had spent years on opposite sides of the same problem. Colaco had run NBA India as managing director; Krishnan had held senior roles at the sports broadcasters Sony Pictures Networks and Neo Sports, and the two had already worked together at Nimbus Sports until 2013 (Wikipedia). Their shared observation, repeated later in interviews, was simple: Indian sports fandom was much bigger than the handful of properties — the IPL, the men’s national cricket team — that broadcasters actually bothered to cover well. Everything else, from county cricket to Olympic sports to overseas football leagues, went largely unserved. Dream Sports, flush with fantasy-gaming revenue and looking to build outside Dream11, backed the idea, and FanCode launched in March 2019 as a multi-sport aggregator under the group (bestmediainfo, April 2019; Wikipedia).

The struggle years

The first real threat to FanCode’s premise arrived within a year of launch. In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic halted live sport worldwide — leagues suspended, tours cancelled, stadiums empty — which is close to an existential problem for a company whose entire catalogue is other people’s live sport. FanCode had no matches to sell precisely when it needed to prove the model worked. It used the enforced pause to keep signing rights for the return of play, and by its own later account scaled from roughly 5,000 matches across nine sports in 2021 to more than 20,000 matches across 17 sports by 2023, once fixtures resumed in earnest (The Streaming Lab).

The second setback was self-inflicted and much more recent. FanCode Shop, the merchandise arm launched in August 2020 to sell official jerseys and sportswear, ran for four years before the company decided to wind it down, with the site closing to new orders by October 2025. The stated reasons were unglamorous and specific: persistent weak margins in ecommerce logistics, and what the company described as unchecked circulation of counterfeit products undercutting genuine sales (YourStory; Entrackr, 2025). It was not a small side project shuttered quietly — merchandise had been pitched publicly as a growth pillar for years — and its closure came just as its parent group needed every working business line to justify itself.

The turning point

The event that mattered most to FanCode was not one of its own. On 20 August 2025, India’s Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, banning real-money contests — games of skill or chance played for cash — nationwide, along with their advertising and payment rails (TechCrunch, August 2025). Real-money contests had been the financial engine of Dream Sports, generating what industry estimates put at roughly 90 to 95% of the group’s revenue through Dream11 (TechCrunch; Business Standard, August 2025). Before the ban, Dream11 counted more than 260 million registered users and was the title sponsor of the Indian cricket team via the BCCI. After it, Dream11 shut its real-money operations, asked users to withdraw balances, and ended the BCCI sponsorship within days (Business Standard; Business Today, August 2025).

FanCode’s own streaming and content business was not directly touched by the law — it does not run cash contests. But that is precisely why it mattered afterward: with the group’s dominant revenue line gone, Dream Sports needed its other bets to matter more, fast. FanCode, still a single-digit contributor next to Dream11’s scale, was pulled to the centre of what commentary at the time called “Dream11 3.0” — a strategy to keep the group’s enormous user base engaged with sport even without cash contests (The Streaming Lab). In December 2025, Dream Sports formalised the shift by splitting into eight independent units — including FanCode, DreamSetGo, Dream Cricket, Dream Sports AI, Dream Money, Dream Horizon, Dream Sports Foundation and a reconstituted Dream11 — each with its own chief executive and, for the first time, the ability to raise outside capital directly (Angel One; Outlook Business, December 2025). More than 100 employees exited the group in the reorganisation (People Matters, December 2025).

The money behind it

• FanCode has never raised from an outside venture investor. Its only disclosed capital injection is $50 million from Dream Sports Investments (Dream Capital), announced in May 2021 — described at the time as the parent’s largest investment in a product outside Dream11 itself (SportsPro; Business Standard, May 2021).
• FanCode’s balance sheet sits inside Sporta Technologies Private Limited, the single legal entity that also houses Dream11, DreamSetGo and DreamPay — meaning FanCode does not file or disclose standalone financials (Tracxn company records).
• At the group level, Dream Sports raised roughly $1.2 billion across its funding history, including an $840 million round in November 2021 led by RedBird Capital, Falcon Edge, DST Global, D1 Capital and Tiger Global, with TPG also participating, that valued the group at $8 billion (Front Office Sports; KrAsia, November 2021). That capital, not a dedicated FanCode round, funded the group’s broader content-rights buildout.
• December 2025’s split into eight units, FanCode among them, was explicitly framed as giving each business — for the first time — the option to raise external funding on its own rather than through the parent (Angel One; Outlook Business, December 2025).

How it makes money

FanCode’s core wager is that flexibility beats commitment. Rather than sell only annual subscriptions, it built a “sachet” pricing model: individual match passes, team-specific passes and tournament bundles, historically priced from as little as ₹4 to ₹20 for smaller fixtures and rising toward roughly ₹100 for bigger windows (Exchange4media; Inc42). Advertising sits on top as a smaller, growing line once the user base scaled past 100 million (Forbes India, May 2024). Both are cheaper to build than the alternative: bidding for India’s most expensive property.

• Pay-per-match and subscription passes — the primary revenue line; monthly, annual, team-specific and tournament-specific tiers sold alongside single-match passes (Exchange4media).
• Advertising — a smaller, expanding stream sold against a premium, sports-engaged audience once scale justified it (Inc42).
• Merchandise (discontinued 2025) — FanCode Shop sold official jerseys and sportswear from August 2020 until its wind-down was announced in 2025, closing to new orders by October (YourStory; Entrackr).

The part people tend to get wrong is assuming a sports-streaming business wins by acquiring the single biggest property, the way Star or Viacom18-JioStar fight over the IPL. FanCode’s model runs the opposite way: let deeper pockets pay the record sums for cricket’s marquee windows — Viacom18 paid ₹23,758 crore for IPL digital rights for 2023-27 alone, part of a ₹48,390 crore total media deal (Business Standard; Variety, June 2022) — and instead aggregate the calendar nobody else wants exclusivity over: Formula 1, county cricket, West Indies and Afghanistan cricket, La Liga, the Bundesliga, and now the Indian Super League. Reach comes from breadth, not from any single blockbuster.

The numbers

FanCode does not file separate financial statements; it sits inside Sporta Technologies Private Limited alongside Dream11 and the group’s other businesses. The figures below are therefore the consolidated Sporta Technologies (Dream Sports) results, not FanCode standalone — the clearest verified numbers available, with the caveat stated (Entrackr filings-based reporting; unit ₹ crore).

• FY23 revenue climbed 66.2% on FY22, driven almost entirely by Dream11’s fantasy-contest platform fees (Entrackr, January 2024).
• FY25’s swing to a ₹479 crore loss predates the real-money-gaming ban — it was driven by a one-time ₹575 crore tax charge tied to a cross-border merger of the group’s US and Indian entities, plus a ₹771 crore charge for director benefits, in a fiscal year that closed in March 2025, before the August 2025 ban (Entrackr; BW Disrupt, September 2025).
• Dream Sports spent close to ₹4,000 crore on advertising and marketing in FY25 alone, 58% of total expenses (Exchange4media, September 2025) — spending that funds Dream11’s brand as much as FanCode’s.
• The ban’s actual hit to group revenue will show up in FY26 filings, not yet public; industry estimates at the time put the loss at 90 to 95% of group revenue once real-money contests stopped (TechCrunch; Business Standard, August 2025).

Where the money comes from

FanCode does not publish a revenue split by segment or geography, so the picture here is directional rather than a set of exact percentages.

• Content and streaming — the platform’s growing core, spanning cricket boards, football leagues, motorsport and tennis, and the only business line the company is now investing in (Inc42; Dream Sports Group newsroom).
• Advertising — smaller and newer, layered on once the user base passed 100 million in May 2024 (Forbes India).
• Merchandise — wound down entirely in 2025 after four years, removing what had once been marketed as a second growth engine (YourStory; Entrackr).
• Geography — overwhelmingly India and South Asia today; the company has stated ambitions to expand into Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, though no revenue contribution from these markets has been disclosed (Inc42).

The surprise is which sport does the work. Despite a 100 million-plus user base in cricket-obsessed India, FanCode’s catalogue leans on properties the country’s biggest broadcasters have historically ignored — English county cricket, West Indies and Afghanistan tours, Formula 1, La Liga — rather than on the IPL or the Indian men’s cricket team, both of which sit with rival broadcasters (Wikipedia; Business Standard).

The risks

• Piracy undercutting a pay-per-match model. On 12 August 2025, the Delhi High Court issued a dynamic injunction restraining rogue websites and apps from illegally streaming content exclusively licensed to Sporta Technologies (Bar & Bench, August 2025). A business built on charging small amounts per match is disproportionately exposed to free, pirated alternatives — the same counterfeiting problem the company cited when it shut its merchandise arm (YourStory).
• Rights-renewal risk. Every property in FanCode’s catalogue — Formula 1, La Liga, the ISL, individual cricket boards — must be re-bid periodically against richer rivals. The 2022 IPL media auction, where Viacom18 out-bid the incumbent Disney Star for digital rights at ₹23,758 crore, shows how quickly a broadcaster’s position can move once a deeper-pocketed challenger appears (Business Standard; Variety, June 2022); nothing stops a similar contest emerging for FanCode’s own niches.
• Being asked to substitute for a much bigger revenue line. Since the August 2025 real-money-gaming ban removed an estimated 90 to 95% of Dream Sports’ income (TechCrunch; Business Standard), FanCode has become one of the businesses expected to help retain Dream11’s 260 million-plus user base (The Streaming Lab). A subscription and pay-per-match sports app carries fundamentally lower revenue per user than a cash-contest platform — the gap it is being asked to help close is large relative to its own historical scale.

The takeaway

FanCode’s most transferable lesson is about where to compete. It never tried to out-bid Star or Viacom18-JioStar for the IPL, the one property every rival wanted most; it built a business instead on everything those broadcasters left on the table. That choice looked modest for years, a side business next to Dream11’s fantasy-gaming machine. It turned out to matter more than anyone at Dream Sports likely expected: when regulation eliminated the group’s dominant revenue line in a single month, the business that survived unscathed was the one that had spent five years quietly building around the edges of the market everyone else was fighting over.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns FanCode?

FanCode is wholly owned by Dream Sports, operating through the legal entity Sporta Technologies Private Limited, which also houses Dream11, DreamSetGo and DreamPay. It is not independently listed (Tracxn).

Who founded FanCode, and when?

Yannick Colaco and Prasana Krishnan founded FanCode in March 2019, backed by Dream Sports (Wikipedia; bestmediainfo).

Does FanCode have IPL streaming rights?

No. Digital rights to the IPL for 2023-27 belong to Viacom18/JioStar, which paid ₹23,758 crore for them in 2022. FanCode instead licenses other cricket, football, motorsport and tennis properties (Business Standard; Variety, June 2022).

How does FanCode make money?

Mainly through pay-per-match and subscription passes, with a smaller and growing advertising line. It discontinued its sports merchandise business, FanCode Shop, in 2025 (Exchange4media; YourStory).

How did India’s real-money-gaming ban affect FanCode?

FanCode’s own content business does not run cash contests, so it was not directly banned. But after the August 2025 ban eliminated most of parent Dream Sports’ revenue through Dream11, FanCode was pushed to the centre of the group’s strategy to retain users through sport rather than cash gaming (TechCrunch; The Streaming Lab).

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• FanCode — Wikipedia, accessed September 2026
• “In 5 years, FanCode has built a user base of 100 million: Yannick Colaco,” Forbes India, May 2024
• “Dream11, Dream Sports: everything you need to know about FanCode,” Forbes India
• “Yannick & Prasana’s interview with YourStory on the $50M investment by Dream Sports,” Dream Sports Group newsroom, 2021
• “FanCode raises US$50m from parent group,” SportsPro, May 2021
• “FanCode looks for scale with $50m Dream Sports investment,” SportBusiness, May 2021
• “FanCode raises $50 mn from Dream Sports, plans 100 million user base,” Business Standard, May 2021
• “Can FanCode’s Live Sports Streaming Save Dream11?,” The Streaming Lab, 2025
• “Can FanCode Fill Dream11’s Real-Money-Gaming Revenue Vacuum?,” Inc42, 2025
• “Dream Sports Valued at $8 Billion After $840 Million Round,” Front Office Sports, November 2021
• “Tiger-backed Dream Sports steps up efforts to create sports tech ecosystem after USD 840 million round,” KrAsia, November 2021
• “As India bans real-money games, Dream Sports, MPL start pulling the plug,” TechCrunch, 21 August 2025
• “India bans real-money gaming, threatening a $23 billion industry,” TechCrunch, 20 August 2025
• “Explained: How Dream11’s sports business affected by Online Gaming Bill?,” Business Standard, 25 August 2025
• “Dream11 to shut real money gaming arm after House nod to Online Gaming Bill,” Business Today, 21 August 2025
• “FanCode to wind down ecommerce vertical, to focus on core content segment,” YourStory, August 2025
• “Dream Sports’ FanCode to shut sports merchandise business,” Entrackr, 2025
• “Dream Sports-owned FanCode to shut sports merchandise business by October,” Free Press Journal, 2025
• “Dream Sports restructures: splits into eight independent units following real-money-gaming ban,” Angel One, December 2025
• “Dream Sports restructuring leads to exit of more than 100 employees,” People Matters, December 2025
• “Dream Sports splits into eight independent start-ups after real-money-gaming ban,” Outlook Business, December 2025
• “Dream11 posts Rs 6,384 Cr revenue and Rs 188 Cr PAT in FY23,” Entrackr, January 2024
• “Fantasy gaming platform Dream11 FY23’s revenue climbs 66% to Rs 6,384 Cr,” Indian Startup News, January 2024
• “Dream11’s domicile and director benefits lead to Rs 479 Cr loss in FY25,” Entrackr (Fintrackr), September 2025
• “Dream11 parent posts Rs 479 Cr loss in FY25 amid tax hit, director benefits,” BW Disrupt, September 2025
• “Dream11 owner ends up with Rs 479 cr loss after RMG ban,” The Arc, September 2025
• “Dream Sports spent close to Rs 4,000 crore on advertising in FY25,” Exchange4media, September 2025
• “FanCode bets big on transaction-led revenue model,” Exchange4media
• “IPL digital rights go to Viacom18, Star keeps TV,” Entrackr, June 2022
• “IPL broadcasting rights: Rs 48,390 crore deal, digital beats TV for the first time,” Arthnova, June 2022
• Indian Premier League media-rights auction coverage, Variety, June 2022
• “Sporta Technologies vs John Doe,” Delhi High Court coverage, Bar & Bench, 12 August 2025
• “FanCode acquires exclusive TV & digital rights for ISL 2025-26,” Dream Sports Group newsroom, 2 February 2026
• SPORTA TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED company profile, Tracxn, accessed September 2026
• Trading Economics, USD/INR exchange rate, 18 September 2026

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