Tech platform MoviePass, co-founded by Stacy Spikes, recently secured a $100 million capital commitment from Global Emerging Markets’ Token Fund to help build Mogul, the first daily fantasy entertainment platform for Hollywood.
The new fantasy gaming platform, which was developed with the help of C3 Foundation, allows players to “compete in fantasy-style tournaments, head-to-head matchups, and solo challenges using their insight to make calls on the outcomes of various metrics including audience attendance, critic scores, award winners and other key entertainment milestones,” a press release states.
“You basically create your own studio by picking real movies, real actors, real directors and the way those projects behave in the real world, and your ability to pick and predict what might happen, impacts your scoring,” Spikes explained to Variety.
Currently, users can’t make real money on Mogul, but the platform’s future goal is to enable players to win cash. Fans can at the moment receive digital, blockchain-based rewards, like new avatar images and artwork, as reported by Inc.com.
The app has a waitlist of 400,000 and is expected to have 200,000 active users on it by the end of May 2025, Variety reported.
“We’re letting people enter in waves in order to not completely overwhelm the system,” Spikes told the outlet.
“Mogul is the culmination of our long-term Web3 strategy,” Spikes said. “Inspired by fantasy sports, we’ve built a new kind of competitive entertainment experience. But the bigger vision is even more exciting—activating a new generation of fans who aren’t just watching movies but influencing the culture and economy around them.”
Variety reported that GEM Token Fund’s investment is a flexible capital commitment that MoviePass can rely on when needed to grow Mogul. MoviePass can pay back the money it uses or to convert some of that for equity.
According to the company, the funds will “help enhance platform features, including data-driven competitions, digital collectibles, rewards-based gameplay and community-led challenges.”
Built in 2011 with a monthly subscription fee of $30 to $50, MoviePass made headlines in 2017 when Helios & Matheson bought a controlling stake, fired Spikes, and cut the price to $9.95 per month. Even though MoviePass became popular, it had to shut down in 2019 because its business model could not be sustained.
Spikes bought back the company at a bankruptcy auction and went on to relaunch it as a profitable enterprise.
READ ALSO: White Akron fire captain sues city, says Black female captain was promoted instead of him
