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

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Slapping "AI" on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood's ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by a company operating in the same space. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sits down with Dylan Robbins, founder and CEO of Lucra, the white-label platform turning friendly competitions into loyalty programs for brands like golf courses, arcades, and pickleball clubs. Listen to the full episode to hear about: How Dylan met his ARK connection over a game of darts at a New York City bar Why pitching a non-AI company in peak AI fundraising season meant addressing it head-on, even when it had nothing to do with his business How being honest with investors about what wasn't working yet actually helped him close the round Why Lucra pivoted from consumer to B2B in 45 days (and why that pivot is what convinced ARK they weren't looking at another Skillz). Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Changes in sexual performance are more common than most people realize, and support doesn't need to feel awkward.
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0:21.8	dot-court-Uk slash podcast to learn more. Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's podcast about
0:27.0	the business of startups. I'm Julie Borg and for Rebecca Bilan and this is the episode where we
0:32.2	talk to experts and explore tech trends. You've probably noticed that being an AI startup is everything these days.
0:38.9	So when we came across a company that raised $20 million from Kathy Wood's Ark Invest Venture Fund
0:45.2	and isn't an AI startup, we had to hear the story. Lucra Sports turns friendly competition
0:50.9	between people into loyalty programs for brands, sometimes for cash prizes.
0:56.1	Today we're talking to Luker's founder and CEO, Dylan Robbins, about what it took to land
1:00.0	that check, especially from an investor who had already been burned by a similar company.
1:12.4	Dylan, welcome to the show.
1:13.8	Hey, Julie, great to see you.
1:18.6	So you've done something that no other startup has ever done before.
1:19.3	Like never.
1:25.4	So you convinced famed investor, Kathy Wood of Arc, to lead an investment in your startup.
1:28.7	They've never ever led a startup investment before.
1:32.9	They called me up excited. They were so excited about you. They were so excited about your company,
1:38.6	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 like overcome their fear.
1:45.8	And all of this is for a startup that isn't AI. That isn't the thing that everybody's chasing.
	...

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