Lucra announced last month that it raised a $20 million Series B, led by the ARK fund, with participation from several other VCs. Robbins attracted ARK even though the fund had previously gotten badly burned on a similar eSports company: Skillz, a skill-based gaming platform in which the fund invested heavily before divesting at a loss. Lucra offers white-label interactive gaming competitions as a novel kind of loyalty program for businesses that serve consumers. Rather than, say, earning points toward a coupon, Lucra's clients offer online tournaments for prizes, or supports friendly wagers between their customers on who will win games. Its customers include Five Iron Golf, Dave & Buster's, and Chess King. 'Six months later, we ran into each other at the bar again. The same darts bar. It's like, 'Good to see you. How's it going'' And we got to talking and I asked him what he did for work. And he told me he worked at ARK,' Robbins recalled. 'My first piece of advice on all of this...
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