Richard P. Blankenship is the 29-year-old cofounder of the rapidly growing financial technology company that just secured 4.5 million dollars in Series A financing, Prizeout. Despite having a headquarters in New York with 28 full-time employees, the story of Prizeout is very much connected to Las Vegas.
Richard P. Blankenship first met his Prizeout co-founder David Metz discussing Poker. Specifically, Blankenship, who was the Chief Revenue Officer at Poker Central at the time, was telling Metz about Poker Central’s live production capabilities. Blankenship realized that Metz, who was the CEO of a trivia themed app called FleetWit at the time, could benifit greatly from these live streaming features.
Very quickly the two entrepreneurs realized that this was a match made in heaven. Blankenship and Metz made a plan to utilize Poker Central’s live production capabilities in order to create a dual poker-trivia show with Fleetwit. It was actually during these conversations where Metz and Blankenship laid the groundwork for a cutting-edge financial technology company, which would later come to be Prizeout. They came up with the idea for a financial technology company that would give gaming and esports companies access to quicker and more varied withdrawal methods such as gift cards from brand partners. Blankenship was sure this would be a hit because of his time as the Chief Revenue Officer with Poker Central, the Las Vegas-based rightsholder for the World Series of Poker, which also owned and operated the 10,000 square foot PokerGo studio at the Aria Resort and Casino.
After these early conversations, Blankenship began selling services for FleetWit, but quickly became the very first seed investor in Prizeout. Metz and Blankenship hit the ground running; Blankenship quickly became both a Cofounder and the Chief Revenue Officer. Blankenship’s ability to form deep connections with important players has allowed him to foster the long-term relationships needed to accumulate the type of venture capital portfolio he has at such a young age.
The serial entrepreneur who has experience in real estate, e-commerce, media, and esports, considers Prizeout his greatest achievement. Blankenship and another one of his partners Jeff Liboon co-founded Estars Studio, which is an Esports production company that provides services to companies like Amazon. This relationship continues to be strong and lucrative with Liboon investing in Prizeout and Blankenship investing in MightyKidz. MightyKidz is one of the fastest-growing childcare facilities in the United States; it has been recognized by INC’s 5000 list, coming in at 344. Blankenship is also an investor based out of Las Vegas involved in Triller, a US-based Tik Tok rival and CUTS Clothing, an LA-based apparel company.
Blankenship is also a big a vocal proponent and advocate of the investment community in Las Vegas.
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