This startup is giving away over $1 million of its seed money
A fintech startup is literally giving away the money it has raised from early investors as it looks to build a potential customer base.
Millions, an apparent fintech company that is currently keeping its founders behind a curtain and not talking much about its end game, is offering up to $1 million to anyone who wins a pick-6 lottery-style contest on its site. In addition, the startup is giving away money randomly to Twitter followers in smaller amounts ($30 to $100 seems standard).
Congrats to the winner of $100 🎉. Drumroll 🥁 please…@JLCrew83!
Didn’t win? Stay tuned for today’s give away. Who knows? It could be you 👀#MillionsProof https://t.co/RlcUY46QPZ pic.twitter.com/P88LVeZbdp— Millions (@Millions) January 29, 2021
The company has raised $3 million in seed money to date from investors including Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, Warby Parker founder Jeff Raider, 8VC, and more.
As promotions go, it’s an effective one. To date, over 19,000 people are following the company’s Twitter feed. It’s also a promotion that doesn’t carry a tremendous amount of risk for the company.
Millions, you see, isn’t promising to give the million dollars away. It’s offering the chance to win. To do so, you’ll have to pick six numbers between one and 99, and those numbers would have to be randomly selected by Millions, much like a lottery.
There are more possible combinations in the Millions promotion than in Mega Millions or Powerball, though. The odds of winning $1 million in Mega Millions are 1 in 12,607,306. Powerball is a bit easier: To win $1 million, your odds are 1 in 11,688,053.52.
Your chances of matching the six picks in Millions are just 1 in 1,120,529,256 in the first drawing. There will be 10 total drawings.
This isn’t Millions’ only game of chance, though. Next month, the startup will reportedly launch a game called “Are you my number neighbor?” asking users to enter their phone number. If it’s one digit off from the phone number on the site, the user will win $100,000.
While the site is coy about who’s behind it, it references MyCard in its terms, a New York–based start up that lists Rory and Kieran O’Reilly as its executive officers. The pair were behind the launch of Gifs.com, which is used by over 1 million people.
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
