Now the project he created, Fantasy Chess, is leveling up from experiment to venture-backed startup. Led by CEO Mats André Kristiansen, the former cofounder of an online grocery startup, Oslo-based Fantasy Chess has raised $3 million in initial pre-seed funding led by local VC firm SNÖ Ventures and Coatue, joined by billionaire investors Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Initiatives and Peter Thiel’s fund Thiel Capital.

>After testing a fantasy game with Norway Chess at its tournament last May, Fantasy Chess now hopes to open up the board beyond that genre, in which fans typically select players to fill out a team and receive points based on their performance in real-life matches. (In that instance, participants selected pieces of specific competitors to follow, winning points if they captured other pieces, and losing points if they were removed.)

Here is the full story.